Text e what skills are engineering employers looking for?

With around 1in 10 university graduates embarking upon a career in engineering each year, it's important that you are aware of the necessary skills and qualities that engineering employers are looking for to give yourself a competitive advantage over the other candidates. One of the beauties of working in this industry is that there are a wide range of jobs available to suit all types of personalities and levels of expertise. Some positions demand a high level of academic achievement, some relying more on technical expertise. Incorporated engineers and engineering technicians need to have a high level of attention to detail, reasoning ability, the skills and knowhow to make things happen and strength of character to manage others. On the other hand craft workers and operators will need basic mathematical ability, resilience, patience and of course, manual skills. Regardless of the role in which you will be working, there are a common set of intangible skills that employers look for across all engineering disciplines:

• Effective communication skills – with an increase in the documentation and instructions that engineers use in the workplace, clear and concise communication is a requirement.

• Interpersonal skills – you need to know how to effectively work as part of a team and work with customers to identify needs and provide solutions.

• Technical knowledge – whatever technical expertise is vital to your job, you need to understand how to apply this to solving practical problems.

• Organizational skills – being able to prioritise tasks, manage your time effectively and resource planning are key skills for engineers.

• Enthusiasm and commitment – learning new skills is part of every engineer's role, so you need to be adept at assimilating a lot of new information.

More importantly, employers are looking for evidence that you take an active interest in and have an understanding of the engineering industry. Furthermore, that you have the motivation, drive and ambition to make an impact within their company.

Unit III

SCIENCE AND SCIENTIST

Text A

SCIENCE, ITS DEFINITION AND HISTORY

Before you read

1. Comment on the statement: «Science is a powerful engine by which the genius of the few is magnified by the talents of the many for the benefits of all».

2. Now read the text and answer the questions:

1. What is the origin of the word «science»?

2. Define the word «science» in a broad sense.

3. How is science defined in a narrower sense?

4. What was science associated with in the 19^th century? Why?

5. Who was the word «scientist» coined by and when was it coined?

6. What is the role of experiment in testing of all knowledge?

7. Name two major groups of scientific fields. What do they study?

8. Give your own definition of «science».

9. What is the difference between basic and applied research? Give your own example of applied research in the field of science you are doing your research.

10. How could you answer the question: «What is the use of basic research?»

Science is the practice where people, usually as collectives, make controlled observations and testable predictions. This is done in the hopes of constantly refining their models and understanding of the world.

Science (from the Latin scientia, meaning «knowledge») is an enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the world. An older and closely related meaning still in use today is that of Aristotle, for whom scientific knowledge was a body of reliable knowledge that can be logically and rationally explained.

Since classical antiquity science as a type of knowledge was closely linked to philosophy. In the early modern era the two words, «science» and «philosophy», were sometimes used interchangeably in the English language. By the 17th century, « natural philosophy» (which is today called «natural science») had begun to be considered separately from «philosophy» in general. However, «science» continued to be used in a broad sense denoting reliable knowledge about a topic, in the same way it is still used in modern terms such as library science or political science.

Science is in modern use, often treated as synonymous with «natural and physical science», and thus restricted to those branches of study that relate to the phenomena of the material universe and their laws, sometimes with implied exclusion of pure mathematics. This is now the dominant sense in ordinary use. This narrower sense of «science» developed as a part of science became a distinct enterprise of defining «laws of nature», based on early examples such as Kepler's laws, Galileo's laws, and Newton's laws of motion. In this period it became more common to refer to natural philosophy as «natural science». Over the course of the 19th century, the word «science» became increasingly associated with the disciplined study of the natural world including physics, chemistry, geology and biology. Several other major areas of disciplined study and knowledge exist today under the general rubric of «science», such as formal science and applied science.