on the existence of "aengineering"

The modern engineering education rides on many flawed principles: "close enough is good enough," "physics hasn't changed in the past 100 years," math is merely a peripheral tool to the study of applied physics, hand calculations are inherently necessary, etc. One particularly egregious, illustrative example: Teaching theory and solving simple, wrote problems will prepare engineers for work. The existence of this imperfect- one might go so far as to say reductionist- model, leaves room to imply the existence of a more capable, beautiful story of engineering that will hone aengineers into confident, curious thinkers and makers.

the core tenents of an aengineer

✦ strive for comfortable mastery of understanding. our goal lies in making fundamentally sound models, not necessarily on the first try, but theory guides our hands
✦ respect and be invigorated by mathematics and physics. these disciplines are not our sole homes, but we live there part-time. love them like siblings, or at least uphold their importance
✦ application and mastery go hand in hand. to analyze real systems to live in reality, and that is where we live. our lives are not 2 dimentional, nor in vaccuums. we accept that this requires a deeper knowledge base before learning some concepts, but are pleasantly surprised to see that it eliminates a fair amount of repitition later down the line
✦ question everything. no professor is a god. accept critique and give it, both in the project space and in the theory space, as well as education
✦ know your limitations. we recognize in the pursuit of knowledge that there are corridors which are more useful broadly than others. these small paths we may choose to travel on our own (or with company), but we shall always understand what knowledge should be acquired for our modern age.
✦ indulgance is the opposite of sin. we will all, at some point, specialize to some extent (even if that means in different areas). indulge in that which you are interested in, and ride it for as long as you like. trueness to yourself will get you multitudes farther than the other option