Portfolio 1

According to article 1, in my opinion, the most important idea to the profession is the one about the aim of engineering -- "improving the quality of life" for "all society's members"(National Academy of Engineering, 2008). The goal defines what engineers should do and makes it much easier to find out a way to achieve it in result of avoiding detours and mistakes. With the vivid aim, engineers will be more likely to "integratte their methods and solutions with goals and desire of all society's members". For instance, for the sake of improving the life quality, it is obverse that engineers should put knowledge into practice and make people's life more convinient and comfortable -- supplying clean water, fulfilling the promise of personalized medicine, etc. On the other hand, in order to keep such improvement growing sustainably in a long term, engineers will have to develop new sources of energy and prevent the degradation of the environment instead of disrupting ecologial balance. With a strong and clear aim, engineers will gain a strong brief to meet the challenges and distroy the barriers on the way achieving the goal. Both the external world and the inner world of mind are very complicated and intricate, apart from acquiring adequate knowledge, engineers should figure out what should be done and what should be avoid. The aim is very important to define what will contribute to the ultimate goal even though there is not much benefits in a short-term. Then the challenges will be more obverse. A clear aim also can help to spread the fruits of engineering and distribute the engineering's gifts to civilization evenly.

References:National Academy of Engineering. (2008, February). Introduction to grand challenges of engineering. Retrieved Jun 3, 2008, from http://engineeringchallenges.org/cms/8996/9221/.aspx