Додаткові тексти № 1. Engineers have diverse careers

Engineering is an exciting career. Engineers achieve great things. Throughout history, people working in engineering have contributed to their communities, countries, colleagues and civilisations by making tools, machines and countless other things to help people improve their lives and progress onto better things. The diversity of engineering means that whatever your interest, there is probably a place for you working in engineering. From information technology to medical science and mining, from building roads to space travel, engineers are working to make things happen.

Engineers get to do cool stuff

Being an engineer means you get to be the first to develop or try out new technologies like artificial hearts, developing and delivering better constructed environmentally sustainable buildings like the first undersea house! Engineers design and build virtual reality worlds, soccer fields or new planets. Engineers discover and patent new materials that can cure cancer or cure the common cold. Engineers are involved in making the future a reality.

Engineers work everywhere

Engineers work everywhere: in cities, regional and rural communities, even remote wilderness areas. Some engineers work business offices, classrooms, others in factories or research labs; some work outdoors or even in outer space. Some engineers undertaken double degrees and go into medicine, law, business management, or policy. An engineering education will prepare you for many different careers.

Challenging Work

Engineering is all about fixing things so as to make the object serve its purpose in the best possible and efficient way. From developing a flying machine to designing earthquake resistant houses,engineering throws up challenges. Challenge is not only about visualizing the development and improvement but also in implementing it.

Intellectual Development

Engineering as a profession is function of creativity and ingenuity. It involves great utilization of your mental faculties as well.

Contribute to Society

Engineering as a carrier provides lots of opportunity to contribute to society. A civil engineer can design models for easing out traffic congestion. A software engineer can develop economical and user friendly software for the disabled, an electrical engineer can devise ways and means for optimum utilization of electricity – all in the interest of the society.

№2. HISTORY OF ENGINEERING

Engineering is one of the oldest professions in the world. Around 2550 BC, Imhotep, the first documented engineer, built a famous stepped pyramid of King Zoser located at Saqqarah.

With simple tools and mathematics he created a monument that stands to this day. His greatest contribution to engineering was his discovery of the art of building with shaped stones. Those who followed him carried engineering to remarkable heights using skill and imagination. Vitruvius' De archiectura was published 1AD in Rome and survived to give us a look at engineering education in ancient times.

Military Engineering

The first engineers were military engineers, combining military and civil skills. During periods of conflict the engineers made and used instruments of war such as catapults, battering rams, towers, and ramps to aid in attacking their enemies' forts & encampments and also to defend their own. During the periods of peace, they were involved in many military and civil activities such as building fortifications for defence against further attacks, roads, bridges, aqueducts, canals and cathedrals. The construction and hydraulics techniques used by the medieval engineers in China, Japan, India and other regions of the Far East were far more sophisticated than those of the medieval European engineers.

Civil Engineering

Civil engineering is the oldest of the main disciplines of engineering. The first engineering school, the National School of Bridges and Highways in France, was opened in 1747. John Smeaton was the first person to actually call himself a "Civil Engineer". These civil engineers built all types of structures, designed water-supply and sewer systems, designed railroads and highways, and planned cities. In 1828 the world's first engineering society came into being, the Institution of Civil Engineers in England.

Mechanical Engineering

Mechanical engineering was the second branch of engineering to emerge in the last part of the 1700s. The invention of the steam engine was the starting point for the Industrial Revolution. All types of machinery were being developed now and so a new kind of engineer, one dealing with tools and machines, was born. Mechanical engineers received formal recognition in 1847 with the founding of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers in England.

Electrical Engineering

Knowledge of electricity grew slowly during the 1800s: the original electric cell was invented by Alessandro Volta in 1800, the Gramme dynamo and electric motor were invented in 1872, the transistor and the vacuum tube appeared by the mid 1900s and by the end of the 1900s electrical and electronics engineers outnumbered all the other types of engineers in the world.

Chemical Engineering

In the 1800's, industry started using more and more chemical processes in many areas such as metallurgy, food production and textiles. At the end of the 19th century, the increased use of chemicals in the manufacturing industry eventually created a new industry, an industry whose main function was the production of chemicals. The new chemical engineer was involved in the design and operation of these new chemical producing plants.

№ 3. KINDS OF ENGINEERING

AEROSPACE

Aerospace engineers are responsible for the research, design and production of aircraft, spacecraft, aerospace equipment, satellites and missiles. Work done by aerospace engineers has made such things as speedy mail delivery and moon travel possible. Canadian aerospace engineers designed the Canadarm used on the Space Shuttle and Space Station Alpha.

As an aerospace engineer, you might work on the Orion space mission, which plans on putting astronauts back on the moon by 2020. Or, you might be involved in developing a new generation of space telescopes, the source of some of our most significant cosmological discoveries.

ELECTRICAL

As an electrical engineer, you could develop components for some of the most fun things in our lives (MP3 players, digital cameras, or roller coasters) as well as the most essential (medical tests or communications systems). This largest field of engineering encompasses the macro (huge power grids that light up cities, for example) as well as the micro (including a device smaller than a millimeter). As an electrical engineer, you might work on robotics, computer networks, wireless communications, or medical imaging—areas that are at the very forefront of technological innovation.

CHEMICAL

Everything around us is made of chemicals. Chemical changes can be used to produce all kinds of useful products. Chemical Engineers discover and manufacture better plastics, paints, fuels, fibers, medicines, fertilizers, semiconductors, paper, and all other kinds of chemicals. Chemical Engineers also play an important role in protecting the environment, inventing cleaner technologies, calculating environmental impacts, and studying the fate of chemicals in the environment.

MANUFACTURING

Manufacturing means making things. Manufacturing engineers direct and coordinate the processes for making things - from the beginning to the end. As businesses try to make products better and at less cost, it turns to manufacturing engineers to find out how. Manufacturing engineers work with all aspects of manufacturing from production control to materials handling to automation. The assembly line is the domain of the manufacturing engineer. Machine vision and robotics are some of the more advanced technologies in the manufacturing engineers toolkit.

MECHANICAL

As a mechanical engineer, you might develop a bike lock or an aircraft carrier, a child’s toy or a hybrid car engine, a wheelchair or a sailboat—in other words, just about anything you can think of that involves a mechanical process, whether it’s a cool, cutting-edge product or a life-saving medical device. Mechanical engineers are often referred to as the general practitioners of the engineering profession, since they work in nearly every area of technology, from aerospace and automotive to computers and biotechnology.

PETROLEUM

Petroleum engineers study the earth to find oil and gas reservoirs. They design oil wells, storage tanks, and transportation systems. They supervise the construction and operation of oil and gas fields. Petroleum engineers are researching new technologies to allow extracting more oil and gas from each well. They help supply the world's need for energy and chemical raw materials.