EngineerHer

Engineering is often seen as a technical, logical, scientific career, with little room for creativity. Now, those of us actually working in the field know just how much creativity is needed in some cases, but let’s explore this in more detail as we work through a few ideas.

Problem Solving

Problem solving is at the heart of engineering. And a quick search of “creative problem solving” on Google Scholar gives about 4,240,000 results in 0.04 sec. So, there’s a lot of thought goes into creative problem solving.

Many engineers have stories that I call the “2am club”. These are the times when you’re half asleep, some bit of kit just won’t do as it should, and you’re it in terms of the problem solving team. Trust me when I say you get very creative at these times. You develop skills you never though you’d ever consider and work around problems, find sort-of relevant parts, scrounge up extra pairs of hands… I could share some stories here, but to protect the guilty, I won’t!

(However, find me a glass of wine or two… actually, most engineers will share these stories, even if only as teaching moments)

The use of ever-growing lengths of pipe as levers is a popular one. I used to know an engineer who swore blind his level had to be 100m long to work the handle he was trying to turn.

Reports

I know, you don’t usually associate report writing with engineering, but trust me, I doubt there’s an engineer in existence who’s managed to escape the damn things. And this is where your creative writing talents get stretched to extremes. And I do mean stretched.

How do you tell the exact truth while not explaining anything? Or how do you explain that leaving doors open will indeed allow insects and other vermin to enter the building, without using the words “you bloody eejit” while conveying the intent?

Engineers can be experts are this sort of thing. Now, this can backfire. But equally, it can get a message across without actually getting yourself fired.

Product and process design

I’m always talking (ok, maybe preaching) that diverse design groups are essential to make sure products and processes are designed to suit multiple body types, people, abilities, etc. And there is little more creative than a project engineer who has been handed a lab process and needs to get it into full scale production, around yesterday.

(It’s always yesterday, by the way. For some reason, people think engineers work well with ridiculous deadlines. The problem is, we often manage to pull it off… but that’s another story.)

Now this is true creative engineering, although it could be considered an extension of the problem solving, in the grander scheme of things. But both product and process design are specific types of engineering skillsets. Check out Caroline Criado Perez’s book for examples of when women very definitely weren’t considered in design processes.

This might seem like feminist harping, but there are real world effects for safety items like seat belts and, perhaps more relevant to this blog, PPE, being designed for men. Things are getting better in terms of PPE now, but really, trying to get a well fitting pair of work trousers or safety overalls was a real issues 20yrs ago. And this is before we talk about the whole toilet issue… again not as prevalent as it was, but still a source of concern.

If nothing else…

Any technician or engineer knows how to write up a time sheet with an eye on creative licence when needed. But creativity is fundamentally part of engineering in a way it is any other profession. In fact, I’d say the creativity in engineering is more fun (but then I would say that!) because it can take many different forms.

But never let anything say “don’t go into engineering, you’re too creative”! There are reasons I have done creative writing courses and in the pre-AI days, had a well-thumbed thesaurus around me whenever I was report writing.

Whether it’s maintenance, projects, process or product design, not to mention all the other myriad of careers and areas engineering can take you to, you need that creative streak to be a good engineer.

Trust me!