By Clare Aririahu
If you are young and talented and also considering a career in engineering, there are so many reasons for you to study this course. Just like all career choices, studying engineering has its pros and cons, though they vary, depending on your reasons for choosing the career. Some people study engineering as a course, some do so to further their education, while some do so as an apprenticeship.
What Skills do You Need to Study Engineering?
It is always helpful if one has a passion for the course he or she wants to study. You need to be really interested in the subject because that would help you to go through the challenges without giving up. To study engineering, you have to understand that the majority of the work to be done is going to be practical.
Aside from being passionate about the course, you will need a lot of logical, critical, and creative thinking. You must be able to think outside the box because some challenging tasks may not have an immediate solution.
Team work is also required. This means that you would work with a variety of people from different work backgrounds. You could be made the team leader and this is another task on its own. As an engineer, you need to take people skills seriously because you will need it for career advancement.
Communication skills are also in high demand for an engineer who is keen about making a great career out of his profession. Effective communication skills help you to interact effectively with other professionals, as well as understand what is required of you at every point in time.
Why Study Engineering?
There are so many reasons to study engineering. Engineering provides you with a whole lot of things like job satisfaction, financial security, the flexibility of schedule, career advancement, intellectual development, and many more. Engineers are always in high demand, though the career is challenging. But the benefit is worth giving it a trial. Whatever the case may be, below are some of the reasons you should consider studying engineering.
You will acquire problem-solving skills
Some of the engineering courses help in instilling problem-solving skills in their students. As a trained engineer, you are going to be confident in these skills because they would help you to deal with some life issues effortlessly.
Engineering gives prestige
Engineers are admired wherever they are found. People get impressed on hearing that a particular person is an engineer. A lot of hard work and energy are put together to acquire a certificate in engineering. This makes people to admire engineers and accord them great respect.
Engineers are talented
Engineers are one of the most talented sets of people on earth. With high creative thinking, these professionals get the most difficult jobs done. Not just that alone, teamwork is one of their strengths. They work together with like-minded people, so one person won’t have to fix the problem alone.
Engineering offers financial security
Engineers mostly find professional success in their careers. Engineers are paid handsomely and are even some of the highest-paid workers. Their starting salaries are among the highest for any college or university degree. With experience and additional training, an engineer can double his or her salary as quickly as possible.
Engineering offers professional success
Engineering will help you achieve success in your career. A qualification in engineering will help you acquire professional success. With logical thinking, analytical skills, critical observation, and decision-making skills, an engineer can scale through every hurdle in life.
Engineers are employable
It may sound odd, but it seems employability comes with the career package of engineering. It is difficult to find an engineering professional who finds it difficult to secure a well-paying job. Even if one happens to lose his or her job, finding another one is never a problem. With more skills and experiences, comes a better chance of one’s employability. Not to exaggerate, engineers are some of the professionals that enjoy a low employment rate globally.
Engineering offers a better platform to becoming a CEO
Among Fortune 500 CEOs, engineering is the most common degree, with about a 20% margin. Most engineers are project managers and team leaders. With their knowledge in business and economics, they naturally fit into the position of a CEO when duty bestows upon them to start a new company.
It is a good major
For those undergraduates who lack the basic knowledge of what they want to do with life, but have a good knowledge of mathematics and science, engineering is a good course to major in. Moreover, if you wish to switch from engineering to another course, it will not be difficult, as far as it is a related course. As a good major, engineering touches other aspects like business, communications, economics, ethics, and many more.
The world cannot survive without the engineers
Engineering is a profession that addresses real-world problems. engineers invent new things, and also improve the qualities of substandard ones. With them, the world becomes more improved, offering a better living condition. Issues like pollution are better handled, new energy sources are harnessed, new drugs are produced and new structures are built.
Engineers enjoy a high level of job satisfaction
Job satisfaction makes one happy. This could be as a result so many factors at play and they include high inclome, flexibility of schedule, adequate allowances, good job security, and so on. With these factors, job satisfaction is possible.
Engineers think outside the box
With their creative abilities and experiences at play, engineers can solve a variety of problems at once. Sometimes, the solution to the problem might no be one of the everyday solutions one meets. Therefore, their creative minds would prod them to think outside the box so as to obtain the solution and get the work done. This is to say that engineers are excellent creative thinkers.
You can choose to earn as you learn
If you desire to obtain more certificates as an engineer, it is quite possible. There are a lot of such professionals in school who earn as they learn. You can be one of them.
Engineers travel the world round
As a high-skilled engineer, you are a hot cake in the job market. Your skills can be applied and utilized anywhere in the world. So, if you feel working overseas is the best option for you, making your dream a reality is never going to be a problem. Just try to do this one thing – get to learn other people’s languages. As a multilingual individual, you can combine your engineering skills with a foreign language.
You can contribute to the society as an engineer
This is just the fact. Society feels the work of the engineers everywhere they go. Move down the lane, you will be driving on a road constructed by the engineers. What about the car? Sure, it is one of the products of engineering. Decide to fly in the air, engineers constructed the airplane. Every aspect of society has experienced the Midas Touch of engineers. In fact, we cannot talk about innovations and advancement without mentioning the engineers as the pilots of the whole thing.
Without engineers, no business is possible
Every aspect of the business needs engineering to succeed. Before talking about any other thing, the very heart of the business which includes electricity, network connection, mobile phones, and so on, are the products of engineers. Is it really possible to connect with other people living abroad just by sitting in the comfort of your home? Talking about the comfort of your home, what really made your home comfortable is as a result of engineers playing their professional roles.
To become an engineer is a difficult task, but the benefits are so much that you may not remember the rigorous process you passed through. If you wish to become an engineer, mount your horse, take up the reins and soar.
Adapted from www.afterschoolafrica.com