A Hispanic Engineer Talks to Young People

I wish to encourage young people to consider engineering as a profession.  I particularly wish to encourage Hispanic children to consider a career in engineering because they are under-represented in this career.  To this end, I have made four videos where I talk to young people about engineering . Below are the links to the four YouTube videos.

1. Hispanic Robert Canright on the Good in Engineering. 
2. Hispanic Robert Canright on the Bad in Engineering.   
3. Hispanic Robert Canright on the Ugly in Engineering.  
4. Hispanic Robert Canright on How to Prepare for Engineering.

In the last video I recommended young people read books.  I only mentioned recreational books.  But there are some books about engineering that are entertaining or educational.  Here is a short list.

1. The Soul of A New Machine by Tracy Kidder.  This is an outstanding book that gives an insider's view of how one new computer was designed.  Not all computer design experiences are like this one, but this one is very interesting.
2. Getting Sued and Other Tales of the Engineering Life by Richard Meehan.  This book is published by MIT Press and MIT is one of the premier engineering schools
3. The Existential Pleasures of Engineering, 2nd Edition by Samuel C. Florman.  

I have read all of these books and recommend them. I have not read the following book, but it looks pretty good.  The Design and Engineering of Curiosity: How the Mars Rover Performs Its Job by Emily Lakdawalla.  One of the book reviewers posted pages from the book to show it has lots of pictures and illustrations.  "Curiosity" is the name of a large roving robot we put on Mars.  That is a big deal.

Anyone interested in computer programming should read The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering, 2nd Edition by Frederick P. Brooks Jr.  Here is a link to an obituary of a successful engineer so you can see how much a successful engineer can accomplish:  Harold Chestnut, The accomplishments and life of Harold Chestnut, 1917-2001.  This webpage on Dr. Chestnut has a couple of interesting videos.  This is worth reading and viewing.  He was an electrical engineer.  He also wrote a couple of books on systems engineering.  Not many engineers are this successful, but it gives you an idea of how much can be done in an engineering career.  On the right hand side of this web page is a list of accomplished engineers, dozens of them, and there is a hyper-link to each on.  Thomas Edison is on the list!  This set of web pages is maintained by the Edison Tech Center.  All these web pages and books can give you an appreciation of how varied an engineering career can be.

If you are a young person thinking about engineering, I hope the videos I created for you will be  helpful to you.  My videos are talks about engineering as a career, including the tough parts of the career as well as the good parts.

There are professionally made videos on DVD or streaming video available for purchase from the Great Courses company.  This set of videos is called Everyday Engineering: Understanding the Marvels of Daily Life.  It is a set of 36 videos, each about 30 minutes, that describe the wonderful engineering accomplishments you see in your daily life.  We are surrounded by engineering in our society. 

Robert Canright