Pre-Research

My Question is: Why don’t more engineers work on global development projects?

General Information Sources:

http://www.universityworldnews.com/article.php?story=20101105221936787

http://www.unesco.org/new/en/media-services/single-view/news/engineer_shortage_a_threat_to_development_underlines_unescos_first_global_report_on_engineering/#.VGo98PnF-ao

These article are about the shortage of engineers in global development.

http://www.theprospect.net/experiences-of-a-girl-studying-engineering-19493

First hand account of a women studying engineering in college.

http://techpageone.dell.com/business/study-women-stem-careers/

dell info page on the decisions women make for their careers.

https://www.nae.edu/Publications/Bridge/51063/51093.aspx

National Academy of Engineers on what type of people study engineering.

Mini questions:

Why do engineers decide to study engineering? Why did I choose to be an engineer?

-are engineers greedy?

Why don’t engineers think about careers relating to international development?

Would having more female engineers help the cause? Why are most engineers men?

Exactly how important is engineering to global development?

keywords for searching that I used:

Engineering, shortage, international aid, types of engineers, engineering organizations, npo engineering, engineers without borders, female engineers, demographics of engineers, international affairs, I.A. demographics.

Disciplines related to my question:

Psychology: How do engineers think? What differentiates the mind of an engineer from that of the many that work in international development? Do I fit the same mold?

Engineering: Need to be informed/inform the reader about the different types of engineering and the difficulties/unique qualities of it.

Sociology: What makes up the demographic of engineers/global aid workers? What kinds of barriers create a possible over representation in a certain discipline? (i.e. males in engineering)

Anthropology: Is there something about the interactions between developing nations that prevent engineers from contributing more to global development? How has the involvement of engineers resulted in the past?

Ideas and some exploratory writing.

why isn't engineering a bigger part of international development?

-doesn't technology have arguably the biggest role in developing impoverished countries?

-why don't people who are studying international affairs or helping with global development attempting to receive a background in engineering?

-why don't engineers think of roles they could have in global development sooner?

      As a computer science major, I can attest to the fact that many engineering majors don't consider their potential roles in global development, at least as an undergraduate freshman in this course. I didn't either, before this course started.
      What's interesting about this is that engineering is extremely important in international development, both is teaching other people how to advance their countries through technology as well as finding efficient ways to make global development cheaper and more successful. I think it's important to explore why engineers choose to be engineers, and why international affairs majors or in general many people who want to dedicate time to international development don't perdue at least a partial education in engineering.
     I think its useful to explore why I decided to be a computer science major. Although it doesn't have "engineering" in its name, computer science is usually taught at engineering schools and contains most of the principles that other majors do. I remember taking a college level computer science course in high school and doing very well in it, but even then, what were my motives for taking the course? What is it about who I am that allows me to enjoy something that's both extremely technical and difficult? Why hasn't the idea of helping international aid efforts ever crossed my mind before taking a class on it?
     I never really cemented what I know to be my personality to myself until the later years of high school. Up until then, I more or less though I would follow the footsteps of my father and become an English major and eventually an editor or columnist. I like reading and always have, but I never really LOVED writing on my spare time. The main reason I fooled myself into thinking I would pursue English was because I was good at reading and writing at a young age.
     In my junior, I took a computer science course purely out of curiosity. I had always spent a lot of time on my computer, and playing video games and whatnot. Fortunately, I ended up loving it. It blended the concepts of proper grammar in the English language, the logic of many principles of mathematical, and the freedom of creation like music or art. Most importantly, computer science and programing has an extremely high skill ceiling. This is addicting to me TBC

Response to Wallace

This article is about the annual Maine Lobster Festival, its activities, and its participants.

The article begins with some background information of the festival, as well as some background information on the lobster as a species. He gives a relatively neutral description of the lobster festival, followed by the history/ evolution of eating lobster.Wallace introduces the idea that lobster is desired because its one of the freshest food there is due to it being cooked alive. This idea brings up the main concept of the article: Is it morally alright to cook a live lobster?

Wallace spends a good deal of time elaborating on whether or not lobsters feel pain, and it they do, whether they experience pain in the sense that humans do. I  actually think he spends too much time on this point. While the answer to this question is important to whether or not its morally okay to cook a lobster alive, I think he should have touched upon the fact that we are cooking them alive without definitively knowing whether or not they experience pain the way we do. Wallace also asks why we aren’t thinking of what we think of the process’ morality.

I think this article is well written. While he does come across as a little preachy, he is very convincing because he uses a combination of discrete facts as well as personal narrative (which is often humorous) to convey information as well as his opinions. I think PETA would be more effective if they used the same strategies that Wallace does to convince the reader that cooking lobster alive is wrong, and that its pretty disappointing that the people attending the festival as well as cooking lobster alive anywhere aren’t thinking about whether or not what they are doing is ethically acceptable.

Response to Walker

     This is a very dense, and powerful essay. Each sentence is an incredibly moving statement worded so precisely and accurately that you can re-read several times over and appreciate it more each time for its both complexity and poetic style.

     Walker begins by talking about about the role of black women in the United State's until around the 1920's (and sometimes a little afterwords). She explains how these women were subject to torture, sexual abuse, and essentially were so spiritual and had such powerful minds that they were like "saints" in a sense. They tried to escape their bodies, which were damaged and abused, and live only through their mind and the hopes and dreams they had for themselves and their ancestors, knowing that they would never have these dreams, but hoping for the future anyway.

     These women were the grandmothers of many African American women today. Walker's essay thoroughly compares and contrasts the ideas of several works, and what each work has to say about these women, specifically how black women were artistic or creative and how they spread this creativity through the next generations that lived on.

     This was hard for me to read. Not only is the topic chilling, but in order to understand many of both Walker and her source's arguments and details you need to spend a lot of time thinking about some horrible situations. The language is amazing and powerful, but it took me a lot of time to understand the things Walker was saying at times, as well as how she could kind of contradict things she said previously but citing a different source and comparing ideas.

Response to Rodriguez article

   I didn't really enjoy reading this article. I thought the structure was inconsistant, and the autheor makes some statements tht are either irrelevant or unjustsified. The story makes off transitions between narrative and history telling. Most of thes details he includes don't really help the arguemnt that much in my opinion. 

   The biggest thing I didn't enjoy reading was the description of Silicon Valley workers being simply just an inconvenient group of poeple who are threatening the ability to be proud of one's body. There aren't many specific examples or facts, and I get the feeling that the author is simply picking a bone with a generation/demographic that is just really foreign to him. The fact that many suburbs of California are filled with intelligent, wealthy, young people isn't so bad. Additionally, these poeple are in positions of high technical skill, and they're usually not simply wealthy just by inheritance.

   I under stand the author was trying to use the narrative part of the story to give some real-world details into the story, but they aren't implemented well and don't add enough to the article to be effective. The writing overall just left me a little dissattisfied as though I had wasted some time reading information that wasn't really that connected to the are of focus.

Medium 5 P essay

There are many different mediums to present arguments supported by both qualitative and quantitative information. However, there is no single medium that is objectively the best medium for all types of arguments and questions. One of the most well known, and possibly overused mediums, is writing, specifically in the form of an essay. Despite being similar is many critical ways, a narrated podcast was an overall better choice for my project. The differences of these two mediums is ultimately what made my choice: while the formally written essay is better at laying out large amounts of concrete information, it is substantially worse at conveying real emotion, and is less accessible to most people.

An essay has its biggest advantage in how it can contains large sets of both qualitative and quantitative information, and still be legible by a reader. The reason for this is that when reading an essay, the reader can go back in the document to find specific bits of information as well as reread anything is difficult to understand the first time around. When listening to a podcast, or some type of spoken medium like the radio, the listener often cannot physically re listen to what is being told to them. This is where writing is advantageous. The writer can include large amounts of information that might be confusing to hear live or spoken, without having to worry about whether or not the reader will be able to understand it the first time through.

While they certainly can be, Emotions are not transferred as well through paper. Readers cannot truly hear the author’s voice and tone when reading their works. In a podcast or listening to the radio, a listener can hear when the author/speaker is excited, nervous, confident, or whether or not they passionately care about something. It’s the ability to contain emotionally charged words regardless of what one is saying that makes this aspect so powerful. Spoken words appeal to pathos more because the author has an easier time showing the reader how both they feel themselves, as well as how they want the reader to feel.

Arguably the most important aspect of the spoken podcast or radio segment is its accessibility. For most readers, reading a deep, well written essay takes time and effort. However, as mentioned above, because of limits on the amount of data that can be conveyed effectively, narrated podcasts are easier to understand and don’t take as much work to extract concepts from. This makes it better for a general, or more casual audience. In reality, most people find themselves able to listen to the radio while performing other tasks because not only is it easier to understand, but you can listen to it while moving or looking elsewhere. This is why it lends itself to general newscasts, sports commentating, and storytelling. These types of spoken vehicles are general not densely packed with information when being told via radio or podcast.

When an author is deciding what medium to use, these pros and cons are what impacts their decision. Generally speaking, when an author is deciding between a written essay and a podcast, they need to weigh how much information they want to include versus how much they want to appeal to the audience’s emotions. For my project, the latter was more important.

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