Essay About Mechanical Engineering And Mechanical Engineers

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During a childhood visit to the National Air and Space
Museum in Washington, D.C., Margaret Anderson caught the spacetravel
bug. She knew then and there she wanted to work for NASA.
It wasnt just a passing fancy. Now 21, Anderson is a student at the
Rochester Institute of Technology, working simultaneously on her
masters and bachelors degrees in mechanical engineering. And
shes living her dream. Anderson is employed at the space agency
through a student co-op program and is working on hybrid
rockets—experimental power plants that combine solid and liquid
fuel technologies to find a cheaper, safer way into space.
If it sounds counterintuitive that a fledgling rocket scientist is
earning degrees in mechanical engineering, it seemed that way to
Anderson at first. She admits she was initially “disappointed” that
RIT has made aerospace engineering part of its mechanical
engineering program. Now, though, shes “really glad I decided to
do it.” Mechanical engineering, she says, has given her a wider
understanding of engineering, and that has helped her grapple with
the myriad issues involved in rocket technology.
Rocket science. Mechanical engineering is all about designing,
building, and maintaining machines of all types and sizes. Its an
engineering classic, dating to the early days of the industrial
revolution, when engineering know-how was needed to harness the
potential of the steam engine. But despite its 19th-century
pedigree, M.E. is today at the heart of many cutting-edge
technologies.
That makes it a hot choice for students. Its by far the most popular
undergraduate degree in engineering; according to the American
Society for Engineering Education, 16,063 undergrad degrees were
awarded in 2006. At the graduate level, its the third-most-popular
discipline among engineering masters and is back in first place
among doctorates.
Why the demand? M.E. students have to master key elements of
chemical, civil, and electrical engineering, as well as physics and
advanced mathematics, particularly calculus. “The breadth of
mechanical engineering is unique,” explains Larry Silverberg, the
associate head of the mechanical and aerospace engineering
program at North Carolina State University. “And, no question,
thats a selling point.”
Thats particularly true for M.E. students who go to graduate school,
with its focus on a narrow area of study. The broadness of the
degree means they have a wide array of possibilities to choose
from. Traditionally, many mechanical engineers headed for
automotive and aerospace, but energy, robotics, and
bioengineering are growth areas, too, as is nanotechnology—which
is, after all, the manipulation of particles at the nano-level to build
microsize machines.
Silverberg singles out three sectors critical to Americas future:
energy, security and defense, and healthcare. “Mechanical
engineering plays a big role in all three of those,” he says.
Ewan Pritchard, who is completing his Ph.D. in mechanical
engineering at North Carolina State, is head of the hybrid program
at Advanced Energy, a company that recently unveiled the first
commercially available plug-in hybrid vehicle, a school bus. Hes
passionate about developing alternative-fuel vehicles, which is why
M.E. was his choice.
“The coming decade is going to be the decade of energy, and when
you think energy, you think mechanical engineering,” says
Pritchard, 35. Thats