No one can ever accuse me of not practicing what I preach, particularly when it comes to preaching about the marvelous, fabulous, spectacular field of engineering. Rolling your eyes yet? Well, my children are, constantly. Whenever the opportunity arises I turn into a live-action Gator Engineering infomercial. I don’t do this to purposely annoy the 12-year-old, the 6-year-old, the 5-year-old or even the 3-year-old. I do it because I genuinely think engineers are amazing.
The funny thing is, even with all the eye rolling that ensues after an infomercial special, they actually listen. My 6-year-old, Jackson, is a case in point.
It happened like this. Jackson strides into the kitchen and hands me his PlayStation 2 controller, the most coveted Christmas present received in the McKeen household.
“The boys, Mom,” he said with all-knowing confidence. “They jumped on me while I was playing and the wires popped out. I think it’s broken.”
I stop and turn, fully-attentive and surprised at his calm. He is 6, after all, the age when the wrong drinking cup can turn into a Naomi Campbell-worthy meltdown. But Jackson is calm, collected, even rational.
“Yeah, buddy,” I say. “We can’t get a new one right now. They’re pretty expensive. Maybe for your birthday.”
He looks at me as if I am wearing a dunce cap.
“The engineers, Mom. Can’t you just take it to work and they can fix it? You said the engineers can do anything.”
Damn! I was played by a 6-year-old and he just beat me at my own game.
But the fact of the matter is, he’s right.
As we look around our lives and see friends, family, neighbors, colleagues, even our alma mater trying to stay afloat during these economically challenged days, promise and possibilities abound — especially for engineering.
In The Florida Engineer (spring 2009) the feature “Economic Rehab,” illustrate’s the $179 billion show of faith in engineering as an economic savior. “Stranger Than Friction,” “It’s Complicated,” and “Getting Centered” all show the College’s commitment to and strength in research. In “Truth Be Told” we see an industry more broadly than ever open to creative problem solving.
But the most telling example in the strength and promise in the future of engineering comes exactly where it should, from the confident words of a 6-year-old boy — “engineers can do anything.”
