What is Engineering?

What is engineering? Engineering is a major branch of technology that deals with the designing, manufacturing, testing, and maintenance of a wide variety of products and systems, and a branch which focuses on applying science to solve important, real world problems.

When thinking of engineering, the first thing that comes to mind is often computer science, but at its core, it's a very versatile field that ranges all the way from constructing skyscrapers to developing microchips. While there are numerous different branches and types of engineering however, it is notable to observe the overlap between fields that causes many engineers to acquire knowledge surpassing their specialty. For example, a nuclear engineer, dealing with products related to nuclear radiation, would need to have some knowledge of mechanical engineering, another field under engineering that comprises the general design and maintenance of machinery.

Engineering in practice also extensively uses mathematics, physics, and computer applications that are designed to aid in design, simulations for testing, manufacturing, etc. Noting this, engineers focus mainly on the theory and plans of how a system should function and be manufactured; although they do create prototypes to test functionality, they generally aren't the ones building the final products themselves.

Since engineering is such a broad field, there are many different specialties within the umbrella of engineering. In total, there are 16 different types of engineering! All types of engineering fall within 4 categories: chemical engineering, civil engineering, electrical engineering, and mechanical engineering. The other 12 types of engineering are: environmental engineering, industrial engineering, aerospace engineering, computer hardware engineering, biomedical engineering, petroleum engineering, materials engineering, health and safety engineering, mining and geological engineering, agricultural engineering, nuclear engineering, and marine engineering.

All these types of engineering are used to solve special types of problems related to that industry, so whichever industry is most interesting to you, that’s the type you should pursue!