Two Horned Aries

Attributes of the Structural Engineer of the Future


If we could fast-forward forty years, the new breed of structural engineer would be unrecognizable to us today.


No. 1: Global Practitioner


The successful global practitioner will work with varying technical standards, indigenous materials and construction techniques. Here, strong technical fundamentals and knowledge of performance-based design will be critical. Just as important, however, is the ability to embrace different cultures, values, languages, and business practices. Tomorrow’s engineer must be globally aware and adept.


No. 2: Collaborative Leader


Tomorrow’s engineers must be able to see their role in its societal context. This entails being able to define society’s important problems, not just solve them -- to champion major initiatives and help to craft public policy, not just implement it.


Projects are becoming increasingly complex. Technical knowledge is exploding. We need to engage stakeholders of many backgrounds. This all demands that the new breed of structural engineer be able to lead collaborative teams. To be a collaborative leader, tomorrow’s engineer must be dynamic, agile, and flexible. Most importantly, great collaborative leaders have to be great communicators -- orally and in writing.


No. 3: Creator/Innovator


To meet the imperative for resource-responsible construction, tomorrow’s structural engineer will invent new construction materials and systems, as well as innovate new processes and approaches to problems. We need to be creative and entrepreneurial. We all will need a bit of John Roebling or Gustav Eiffel in us.


No. 4: Integrator


In engineering problem-solving, we are taught to break problems down into smaller and smaller pieces. Tomorrow’s engineer must be able to engage in lateral, functional thinking as well as vertical, in-depth thinking; to synthesize as well as analyze; to integrate knowledge from a variety of sources; to integrate complex systems. To do this, we must be able to span disciplinary boundaries.


No. 5: Master of Uncertainty


The new breed of structural engineer must be able to embrace problems of uncertainty, help others understand it and make good decisions in the face of it. Balancing risk and reward among project team members is an important strategy for providing value through innovation. We need to accept ambiguity as a new permanent condition.


No. 6: Expert of Technical Fundamentals


While many things about the engineer of the future look different, we must not only retain but strengthen our solid expertise in technical fundamentals. Blind reliance on computers can erode our ability to make reasoned judgments that involve common sense and intuition.


Young-ha Kim talks about the artist inside us, unleashing our inner self child.  An indeed inspiring talk.

  I once remembered, when I first moved to the US from Thailand, that I was required to write essays upon essays every week within a half-hour in my high school English classes.  Oddly enough, I wasn't placed into an ELL program due to my adept ability to speak English "well".  While other students had to go through a more formal process of writing of specific types of essays, I remember that I was given the permission to write whatever I felt like.

I took upon this opportunity with little thought and wrote about my favorite subjects.  "Robbie Fowler is my favorite soccer player..." so and so.  I didn't feel really creative, I just wrote to kill time and to tell people why I liked a particular thing.  I basically found out that I really liked writing about my own experiences and thoughts.

One of the most memorable parts I had about writing was when my 10th grade English teacher came out screaming her joy about my mini essay that wasn't supposed to be an essay.  She came to me the next morning telling me how great a storyteller I was; how much she enjoyed reading my grade school highlights.

I didn't start to think much about my writing until my later years in high school and throughout college.  I had to think harder about if what I wrote made sense and if it got my point across or not.  I think this hampered my joy for writing, since I started to stall midway I write, checking every word, every sentence, every flow, before I even began to write the next one.  It slowed me down, it bored me.  My nature of perfectionism crept up on me and halted my entire writing process.

Essay due dates were the worst nights.  After a long writer's blocks, I unleashed relentlessly whatever I thought to be relevant to the topic, whether it was to be persuasive or technical.  I found the finish article submittable and thought to myself, "Why didn't I just do this earlier?"

Guanlao, known by his nickname Nanie, has set up an informal library outside his home in central Manila, to encourage his local community to share his joy of reading.

The idea is simple. Readers can take as many books as they want, for as long as they want - even permanently. As Guanlao says: "The only rule is that there are no rules."

It's a policy you might assume would end very quickly - with Guanlao having no books at all.

But in fact, in the 12 years he's been running his library - or, in his words, his book club - he's found that his collection has grown rather than diminished, as more and more people donate to the cause.

I could only think about Thailand when I read this story.  Similar to the Philippines, the only real library you could find was the national library in the capital.  There are libraries at universities and schools, but the public were not allowed to borrow books from any of those places.  

I remember my parents always bringing me and my siblings to the bookstore to read.  My favorite had to be ศูนย์หนังสือจุฬา (Chulalongkorn University Bookshop), probably the biggest bookstore at that time (Kinokuniya Bangkok is now the biggest bookstore in Thailand), had the widest variety of books, from textbooks to fiction all in one store.

When I came to the US, I found libraries and bookstores at almost every corner, which obviously made me excited.  One of the charms of a "developed" country.

Despite living in Thailand since I was young, and take pride in it, I don't think I would be able to live in Thailand and mix with the modern Thai culture.  I'm not talking about tradition and etiquette, I'm talking about social life and people's perspectives.  Very few people are open minded and readily accepting of people different from them.  They easily look down on other countries near them as being inferior and use the words ลาว (Lao) or เขมร (Khmer) as a derogatory term to insult people. I don't like that side of the culture.

It's not far from the truth in the US either, people using others' nationality as an insult.  However, people here tend to be more aware of how closed-minded those people are and they tend to be immature in a sense.

All in all, I'm not saying that Thai people are bad, and I don't intend to put a blanket over the entire nation, but the general feel is all but the same even with a majority of the highly educated.

I notice that I always talk about logging every single day at almost all times, when in truth, I find it the most mundane and boring thing to do.

I remember events and pictures.  I have that kind of memory to remember almost everything I see, hear, and touch; my friends know how I am. Sometimes, I don't dare to show them how much I remember, I'm afraid how creepy they'd think I am for having their little actions memorized, their life patterns, their life stories.  What I don't remember, however, are feelings.

Feelings aren't those things that you sense directly with your eyes and ears, not even with your nose or nerves.  That empathetic moment you had with a particular person that one night, sharing stories and telling them how you felt towards other friends or how they felt towards you, looking for approval and sympathy.  Do I remember how I felt that night?  Of course I do, but the blurry feeling of discontent seemingly vanished through time with others filling in every second I live.

The point isn't that I don't remember feelings, but feelings subside upon each other and variably change all the time.  The abstract thought of it makes it float around with nothing more of an image of association, rather than the concrete evidence itself.

I was never one to quickly tell others how I felt, because it all depended on at what point in time they asked me.  Then again, that's what most people love to talk about -- how good or how bad something was, how much they loved it or hated it.  I love hearing these stories with a base of reason behind it.  What I don't like are empty loves and likes and hates and horrors.

I was never personally one to talk about my feelings, I never thought anyone would take interest in my selfish-loathing-words of how I felt about the world.  Funny how easy it is trying to think about others, but not for myself.  Human nature? Maybe.

I'm not empathizing with anyone right now, am I?  All I write about is myself and only myself.  My thoughts and only my thoughts.  If any award I get this life it'd be for self-contradictory and hypocrisy.

Before I do end this note and reread my words, I will note my angry mood of self-hatred.  Reason: awkward persona worn at work.