SteveA
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- Joined
- Dec 20, 2011
- Messages
- 3,284
For most of my career in industry I was in one way or another a 'Systems Engineer'....now that is another whole can of worms....so we introduced the term 'Systems Architect', I am sure on my CV somewhere it used to say 'Enterprise Architect' when i worked in the heady environment of 'Systems of Systems' development and integration.
In the US these are thought to be skills you can teach in a primary degree course.
In the UK (and elsewhere) there is a different view. We tend to think the only real way to get these skills is a baseline engineering qualification, degree or otherwise and a lot of experience, most of which tells you not to trust everything you were taught getting your baseline engineering qualification!
To some degree this leads to individuals who can outperform those trained in narrower and narrower specialisations at the system level, by fostering a very broad skill base and the ability to helicopter above a project to get the full view, which is what I think a Systems Engineer does.
It is the case that Engineering as a discipline is not respected in the UK, and the teacher's comment is typical of educators and academics. Since it is those people who control education it is also the case that insufficient effort is therefore spent getting kids STEM qualified. But it is also true that the UK generally does not invest in its future, and never has.
You can lead this right back to the demise of every great British industry that died through both arrogance and lack of investment.
In the US these are thought to be skills you can teach in a primary degree course.
In the UK (and elsewhere) there is a different view. We tend to think the only real way to get these skills is a baseline engineering qualification, degree or otherwise and a lot of experience, most of which tells you not to trust everything you were taught getting your baseline engineering qualification!
To some degree this leads to individuals who can outperform those trained in narrower and narrower specialisations at the system level, by fostering a very broad skill base and the ability to helicopter above a project to get the full view, which is what I think a Systems Engineer does.
It is the case that Engineering as a discipline is not respected in the UK, and the teacher's comment is typical of educators and academics. Since it is those people who control education it is also the case that insufficient effort is therefore spent getting kids STEM qualified. But it is also true that the UK generally does not invest in its future, and never has.
You can lead this right back to the demise of every great British industry that died through both arrogance and lack of investment.