اَلسَّلَامُ عَلَيْكُمْ وَرَحْمَةُ اللهِ وَبَرَكَا تُهُ
The moment I'm writing this post, it has been 2 weeks since I started my degree life at Taylor's Uni. The first week was tiring since it's a transition from a very long holiday to the days with a lot of classes that need focus (that I'm not good at). The second week, our classes has started but no practical, so there are a lot of gaps in the timetable in the mean time.
The first week was orientation week. I'm not going to talk about the week itself, but about one talk that was given by the dean of School of Engineering during one of the sessions. He was explaining about the 14 Grand Challenges for Engineers that has been addressed by the National Academy of Engineering (NAE).
Honestly, before I heard about this challenges, I thought engineering was about making stuffs, getting money etc that only involves myself only. Before the dean talks about the challenges, he showed some main problem regarding most nations in the world; such as access to clean water, availability of clean air and many other life necessities problems. Then, he told us the 14 challenges. The challenges are mainly regarding the environment, energy, health and security. I don't want to talk about these challenges (I'll put a link to it), it just that I want to do some reflections from it.
As I mentioned before, I thought engineering is just about me. These challenges opened my eyes that the responsibility on the shoulders of fellow engineers are quit big. This is because, I think, from my point of view, almost all of the challenges can only be done by engineers. For example, energy problem. There's no way a doctor can solve it, let alone a politician. Access to clean air and water; engineers would definitely play a big part to make it happen. I'm not trying to promote engineering here, because we definitely would be needing all other people with different jobs since engineers can't perform surgery (I hate bio). But, these challenges are made for engineers in order for humanity to survive and live on to the next century.
These challenges are mainly to save humanity. So, it's a big responsibility. Not to promote engineering, nor to degrade the studying spirit of fellow engineers. But, take it to another level. Make it also a challenge to ourselves. To make us think about everybody else also. To make us think outside from our comfort zone. To make sacrifices so that we can continue to live on on this lovely planet called Earth.
I think that's all for this time. Hope to see you again next time, insyaAllah.
