Last year, I was sitting at a table full of women who were in some way or another involved in product development at my company. We were chatting, sharing stories about our experiences, and getting to know each other. It was a nice casual way to spend a lunch break.

One woman was sharing her background. She was an engineer whose job was to do a lot of calculations and diagrams. But in the middle of explaining this, she made a comparison to other people in her organization, said something that startled me.

“I do REAL engineering.”

The emphasis made her point clear. She believed that because she did complex math as a part of her job, that she was a better, truer engineer than one who doesn’t. Whatever her special subset of engineering was, it bested all the others.

No one said anything and she continued with her story, the details of which I can’t remember now. But I remember feeling that this was an unfair, very non-inclusive attitude to have at a time when a couple big things were happening in my life that fit the exact opposite of that statement.

First, I had just volunteered to be a part of an outreach program through a local branch of a professional engineering society. The program was meant to encourage young girls to be open to exploring engineering as a career path. I was in the process of trying to put together a fun introduction to engineering in a way that showcased what I thought made engineering great: the breadth of areas you could go into. I love that you can have any interest in the world, and there is a field of engineering you could study to suit that interest. So, what a complete turn off would it have been  if I stood up there in front of a bunch of excited young girls and said, “Now remember, engineering is purely load diagrams and using a ton of math, so study hard and get good at numbers or you can’t be a real engineer!” How many of those girls would have completely shut down the idea?

Second, I had just accepted a new role where I would transition from my current job as a CAD Designer into a newly created HMI (Human Machine Interface) Engineer position. I was so excited because I would finally be an officially titled engineer after all of the hard work I had put in to earn the degree. I had been hired in part because my background at school focused more on high-level product development than on in-depth math analysis. When working on projects I tried to thoughtfully blend creativity with engineering analysis and problem solving. I had a carefully crafted portfolio where I put my projects and results on display in a eye-catching and clean way. I had the degree, so they knew I could do math, but my job was going to involve using the broad scope of problem solving techniques and creative flare to help shape user interfaces around new and emerging technologies. Was she suggesting that I am an inferior engineer, unworthy of the title, simply because my daily responsibilities would not include intense number crunching?

As a Mechanical Engineering student, equal (if not greater) emphasis was placed on properly defining a problem and developing the most creative solution before you even thought about touching a math equation. By my senior year, my coursework was full of product development classes that focused on the process more than the details. Certainly my early coursework was focused on learning the basics of a wide variety of scientific areas. I was taking classes on everything from chemistry to heat transfer to mechatronics. No one person can be an expert in all of the topics that engineers must study, but you still had to take the classes. Some of the topics we difficult for me to understand and apply, and homework sometimes felt impossible.

I remember paying a visit home and complaining to my grandpa, a retired engineer, about how difficult a lot of the classes seemed to deliberately be designed. His response was that an engineering degree wasn’t about learning every equation for every subject perfectly. “It’s all about learning how to think about problems.” And to do that, you had to confront a lot of different kinds of problems.

Look up any modern definition of engineering and what engineers do and you’ll find a similar line of thought. Engineers are people who work to acquire a diverse understanding of mathematic, scientific, and cultural topics so that they can apply them creatively on efforts that benefit humanity.

“Engineers apply the knowledge of the mathematical and natural sciences (biological and physical), with judgment and creativity to develop ways to utilize the materials and forces of nature for the benefit of mankind.” -International Association of Engineers

That’s not to say that math isn’t important. Math is, after all, a vital component of the education, and a lot of engineers use it on a daily basis to make sure the nitty gritty details of every design are perfect. But the point is is that it’s not just math that makes the engineer. It’s creativity, curiosity, and a willingness to solve problems. There are different engineers in each industry that focus on each part of the product development cycle, from concept generation through prototyping to manufacturing. And as a profession, it impacts the life of every person in every way, from the toothbrush you use in the morning to the shoes you take a jog in to the complex medical devices that are helping doctors help patients at the local hospital. And if your dream is to design an amazing audio system for a concert venue, a piece of software with the perfect user interface, a toy that takes a difficult topic to learn and makes it fun, the longest bridge in the world, or a tent that reinvents the camping experience, embrace that dream and solve those big picture problems! That is what REAL engineering is!

Now that we have a definition of what engineering means, we can start talking about problem solving. Next time I’d like to introduce some “design thinking” rules that I’ve boiled down and started using both in my job and at home.