Engineers or Writers?

When most people think of an engineer skillset, they think math and science. Most people don't realize that engineers still need to excel in writing and researching in order to succeed in their field.

Sometimes, engineers are given topics and projects that they don't know much about. In order to do their job correctly, they must learn as much about the topic as they can. This is where researching comes into play because they need to know how to discern good sources from bad ones. They also need to know where to find these sources, such as an online library (NCSU library), a newspaper (New York Times), or any other source.

Communication is very important in engineering because it requires making lots of connections and writing papers. Engineers have to write "papers" for their customers that include detailed research as well as a description of the project. Quiet often, engineers have to write about topics that even their own customers don't know about. It is that engineer's job to be able to communicate information to the customer, but be able to do so in an understandable manner. To do this, they need to understand how to utilize writing tones and audiences.

As an engineer, I need to be able to write formal academic papers in an easily comprehensible way. Because of this, I do not need to bother myself much with digital composition since it is meant to be straightforward information. When I was still deciding on a major, I used to think I wanted a major that only incorporated one subject field, such as math and science. As I did more research into majors, I realized I wanted a major that incorporates a little bit of every subject, such as math/science, english, art, etc., which is exactly what engineering is.