Natasha D'Souza

Did you know that there was something called National Engineering Week(NEW)? Yup, you read correctly, a whole week dedicated to engineers and engineering. This is celebrated in a number of countries world wide. In Canada it is from Mar 1st – 9th, in the U.S.A. it’s from Feb. 17th-23rd and in Britain from March 7th-16th.

Being an engineer, I think it’s totally awesome that there is a whole week dedicated to engineering!!! Not a day but a whole week!!! Why is that? Stumped I decided to investigate this a little further.

What do engineers do? Engineering has been called the “stealth profession” because most people have no clue what engineers do and what engineering is about. That’s somewhat surprising since engineering has been around for a very long time. To try to understand this I thought that I would list the different types of engineering and what they all mean.

Here goes

1. Acoustical Engineering – branch of engineering dealing with sound and vibration
2. Aerospace Engineering – deals with spacecraft that leave the earths atmosphere
3. Aeronautical Engineering – deals with aircraft that stay within the earths atmosphere
4. Agricultural Engineering – apply engineering science and technology to agricultural production and processing, and to the management of natural resources
5. Automotive Engineering – branch of vehicle engineering incorporating elements of mechanical, electrical, electronic, software and safety engineering as applied to the design, manufacture of automobiles, motorcycles, buses and trucks
6. Bioengineering – application of engineering principles and design to challenges in human health and medicine.
7. Biomedical Engineering – application of engineering principles and techniques to the medical field.
8. Chemical Engineering – branch of engineering that deals with the application of physical science, math, to process of converting raw materials or chemicals into more useful or valuable forms.
9. Civil Engineering – deals with the design, construction and maintenance of the physical and natural built environment, including works such as bridges, roads, canals, dams and buildings
10. Computer Engineering – application of engineering principles to the design and development of hardware and software systems
11. Electrical Engineering – application of electricity, electronics, electromagnetism, power, control systems , signal processing and telecommunications.
12. Engineering Management – Engineering management involves the overall management of organizations with an orientation to manufacturing, construction, engineering, technology or production
13. Engineering Sciences – integration of sciences with areas of traditional engineering such as research, design and analysis
14. Environmental Engineering – is the application of science and engineering principles to improve the environment (air, water, and/or land resources), to provide healthy water, air, and land for human habitation and for other organisms, and to remediate polluted sites
15. Genetic Engineering – Genetic engineering uses the techniques of molecular cloning and transformation.
16. Geotechnical Engineering – the engineering behavior of earth materials
17. Industrial Engineering – is a branch of engineering that concerns the development, improvement, implementation and evaluation of integrated systems of people, money, knowledge, information, equipment, energy, material and process
18. Manufacturing Engineering – application of control engineering procedures in manufacturing processes and methods of production of industrial commodities and products
19. Marine Engineering – are the members of a ship’s crew that operate and maintain the propulsion and other systems on board the vessel
20. Materials Engineering – involving the properties of matter and its applications to various areas of science and engineering
21. Mechanical Engineering – application of physics for analysis, design, manufacturing and maintenance of mechanical systems.
22. Metallurgical Engineering – study of physical and chemical behavior of metallic elements, their intermetalllic compounds and their compounds, which are called alloys.
23. Mining Engineering – other engineering disciplines as applied to extracting and processing minerals from a naturally occurring environment
24. Nuclear Engineering – application of the breakdown of atomic nuclei and/or other sub-atomic physics, based on the principles of nuclear physics
25. Ocean Engineering – concerned with the design, analysis and operation planning of systems that operate in an oceanic environment
26. Petroleum Engineers – the exploration and production activities of petroleum as an upstream end of the energy sector
27. Software Engineering – application of a systematic, disciplined, quantifiable approach to the development, operation, and maintenance of software

There you have it, 27 different types of engineering explained. I was quite surprised by this number and I am sure there are a lot more.

Now I understand why we need a whole week, as one day would not be enough to cover all the different types of engineering.