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Ethics and Responsibilities of Engineers

"With great power comes great responsibility" - Uncle Ben

I'm no fan of the of the Spiderman movies and even less supportive of Tobey Maguire, but I feel that this quote has much to do with ethics. If we are to only take one missing basic from this course, it would be vital to not have a lack of "Parker 101". Peter Parker has lots of powers to do good, but the movies show his struggle to do right. As upcoming engineers, we will have the ability to fix and change the lives of others. We need ethics so that we affect the lives of others for better and not for base motives.

While we are in college, we have the responsibility to become the best engineers possible. This can only be reached if we follow some ethical guidelines. Schoolwork and exams can pile up, but they must be taken care of with our effort alone. We are being unfair to other students if we turn their work in as our own. And though it might be tempting to use another person's writing or use other sources to get an answer, it does not teach us anything. By cheating at schoolwork, we are cheating ourselves from becoming better engineers.

Ethics must also influence us as professional engineers as well. Our work must still be our own, but using other's work is now considered stealing and the consequences of it are much more significant. A less covered responsibility of an engineer is to make sure that their project does not negatively affect the lives of the people using it. The benefits of others are always more than our own. A different material or process may save us money and speed up production, but how does it affect the safety of others? This is something to be considered once we hold the lives of others in our hands.

Engineers are supposed to find solutions for the problems of others. We are not doing our job if we compromise this idea for our own benefit.

Some Creative Ideas

Full process cupcake maker (from mixing ingredients to decorating). By selecting some parameters, the machine makes custom cupcakes

Integrated kitchen inside car - items such as a fridge and a toaster that hard wired to the car's battery.

I love crayons

Shown here in high quality crayon drawing is my idea of iEFX as a system. Though the graph is friendly enough to understand, I'd like to explain my labels:

Inputs

Students - This is what iEFX is mostly about. All of the labs, blogs, and Goldberg videos would be pointless if there was no one to teach. The students are an interesting bunch - though we all have a few years of learning ahead of us, I feel that a lot of it comes from talking to other students. Unlike the rest of my engineering classes, there's no majority of one type of engineering. Everyone is very diverse and has a different thing to bring into the program.

Money - Self explanatory really. We'd have a really hard time having this program go if we didn't have any cash money to run it. It's what allows us to buy food, lab materials, and parts for projects.

iSAs/TAs - These guys are guidance. Though all the engineering students in the program are very smart, they still need to know what direction to take. iSAs and TAs are previous members of the iFoundry program who have first hand experience in projects. And besides being past members, they too are extremely smart, so listening to them is a good idea.

Passion - Knowing all the stuff in the world isn't going to do one any good unless they have a goal to accomplish. Passion is what excites us. We're all going through this extremely tough engineering program so we can do the things that we want to do. Be it death robots or cleaner water supplies for all, our passions not only create an end goal but find ways to drive us to get there. It's kinda like money without being dirty.

IEFX

iTeams - People can get a lot of tasks done on their own. They can do even more when they're in groups. As we have all learned, a good number of engineers aren't just walking calculators. Many of us have great ideas and forming a group is the best way to make them happen.

Meetings - This is time for the iTeams to meet up and get their projects done.

Projects - iTeams usually come up with one or more project. These are ideas that we think are cool and want to try out. Projects allow us to put our knowledge and passion to good work.

classes/ENG 198 - it would be foolish to just go into a project without knowing the missing basics. Our discussions educate us on conventions such as labeling, models, communication, and such. Without this knowledge, starting and sharing a project with others would be much more difficult. Your tortilla business would be screwed.

Lab - This portion of IEFX is learning by doing. A group has two projects to complete. However, there is little instruction. The groups are free to go about as they wish. As practice, they are also required to write lab reports and make presentations.

Outputs

Smarter students - The students were already intelligent from the beginning. After going through the program, we will hopefully be wiser and have a better idea about engineering and how to work towards completing projects

Ideas - Perhaps new ideas will spawn from the projects in iEFX. Maybe some students will want to improve current projects. There is a good chance that every student will leave with a plan to accomplish something else.

Connections - A ton of people are involved with this: past students, current students, professors, and business people. From the classes and labs to things like EotF, there's a ton of people to talk to. The system leaves us with people who we all may work with in the future.

Feedback

Experience - In class, we were given a survey about the material. This is one way to improve the system. However, experience is another way that we can better the program. For example, a group may have a problem meeting up to work on a project. The feedback is not enough people showing up and the result is a different meeting time or place. By finding out what works, we are already helping the program.

Future iSAs - Just as we got guidance from our iSAs, the next group of students will need help too. Some people from this year will use their experiences to guide future freshmen.

Importance of Labeling

When life starts getting confusing, labels are always a good idea. They help identify important parts in a setting, describe their location, or tell what that part's function is. Without labels, the rest of the world may not understand your ideas. For example, I needed to ask my math TA for help. He told me to meet him in his office in Altgeld. What a helpful statement. I ended up venturing around Altgeld for half an hour trying to find my TA's office. My hunt led me all over the place, ending in a small basement room.

Two elements would have aided my quest: a better description and a physical label. My TA gave me a major hint in finding his room - it's his office. However, he failed to mention where it was in Altgeld. And though a room number gets the job done in most cases, it would be reassuring if his name was somewhere on the door. Not only then would I know it's an office, but HIS office. Both additions would probably condense my epic journey into a minute or two.

In my ENG 198 discussion, my TA stated that engineers sometimes throw labels at people without properly explaining them OR just giving them poor labels to begin with. Labels should be simple - broken down to the point where everybody can understand them. A good label should give the audience an idea of what something does. Also, labels must distinguish from other parts in a system. Telling someone to go to their office does just as well as telling someone to find 'book' in a library. Great help

A Free Write on Communication

I think of communication the same way that I think of networking: It' s another concept that I didn't think that engineers would grasp. I remember reading up on 'The Missing Basics' before the beginning of the year. I started to worry that everyone in the iEFX would get their points across by grunting syllables and avoiding to look each other in the eye. But just like networking, I'm wrong. Almost all of the engineers in the program are sociable, friendly - I wouldn't think that many of them were engineers from a first impression (but I should probably drop this engineering stereotype that I've adopted before college).

This makes me wonder if communication should be labeled as a missing basic. In all honesty, I don't see any engineers on campus that have a really large problem with this. Like my supervised study group is extremely active in helping each other when they meet. They've identified that they need help, and then they went out for it - they joined a group and are trying to get as much help as possible to get a better grade. It's everywhere on the engineering campus if you look at it. The tons of engineering groups that there are to join, talking with tas and professors, fretting over things we don't understand in class - almost everything that we engineers do involves communicating.

If there's a problem in communicating, it's most likely through writing. When one writes, they must make their words clear to their audience. I remember someone in my discussion stating "write with your pen". This is harder for some than it is others. For me, I feel as though writing is easy. However, I find explaining hard concepts through writing harder than just talking about it. This, like anything else, improves with practice.

Networking

It's a common stereotype for engineers to be socially awkward. I was scared that all of the engineers I would run into would be strange. However, almost all of the engineers I've met have been extremely normal people who could carry on a conversation.

This shouldn't be surprising to me. Engineers need to be able to network and communicate in order to get work done. In "How to be a Star at Work", Kelly states that networks help fill knowledge deficits. Networking aids.productivity since it's impossible for one person to know everything. By networking, one can save themselves a ton of time and stress.

What I Don't Know

Most of what I don't know pertains to EC 110. Though many of my peers are superstars in this class, I'm among the part that doesn't understand what's going on. For me, homework that should only take a couple of minutes can span over hours. My first exam is on Monday and I'm not ready for it at all.

An Opportunity

Before the school year began, I signed up for an organization called International Buddies in Engineering (IBE). IBE is a program that involves american students mentoring an international student in order to help the international students adapt to university life. Despite being a freshman, I joined anyways to get involved in an organization. Ironically, my international buddy Shawn is a senior, so it's difficult to know who is actually the mentor. However, both of us are electrical engineers. This creates a great opportunity for me. I can ask him for help about ECE 110 problems. Perhaps he could show me his research on MRIs later on in the year as a glimpse of what I could be doing later on in electrical engineering.

Refilling the Well

Besides finding people that complement another's lack of knowledge, Kelley also states that the network must also be about giving back to other members. The idea of a network is not just to ask for help but to provide it as well. Outside of studying engineering, I play tennis, eat dinner, and hang out with Shawn (in a way, this isn't really giving back since I enjoy all three). In this opportunity, both of us help each other out.