Talk:Fields of engineering

Adding Disciplines, not presently listed: Where to put these? An Example is 'Optomechanics'
The list of engineering disciplines is gettin a little long. Still there are some disciplines that come under engineering that are not presently described. I am wondering how best to integrate them. "Optomechanics" is an important sub-specialty. It is recognized as such by both the Society of Photo-optical Instrumentation Engineers SPIE (themselves a huge group with an annual conference in the thousands), the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics AIAA, and the IEEE. I intend to do an entry on this discipline, the fields main inventors and practictioners, the core texts, with links to the societies and institutions that referee the publications in this area. This discipline could be listed as a second tier of the present list, disciplines and sub-displines. The main discipline would be mechanical engineering or optical engineering and the sub specialty Optomechanical Engineering. The optomechanics material does need to be added. The question is where? Any opinions? Robert Chave (talk) 23:12, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

There needs to be a distinction between disciplines of engineering and topics of engineering. A list of topics can quickly become very long indeed. Rlinfinity (talk) 07:47, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

Professional Commentary
1 - Someone should Consider AACE and add in Cost engineering. Most AACE professionals are government licensed Professional engineers.
 * "Cost Engineering" is not engineering, it is management and accounting. Check out the CCE sample exam from AACE's webpage. http://www.aacei.org/certification/CCC/CCC-CCESampleExam.pdf these are management and accounting questions that do not require any engineering knowledge or expertise. If any AACE professionals are also licensed professional engineers, its only by coincidence.  NSPE does not recognise "Cost Engineering" as a discipline, nor does it include the duties of a "Cost Engineer" as qualifying experience for licensure.

2 - Runaway List? - "Professional Engineers" - NSPE is the legal standard for licensed engineers, but there many weird niches in engineering. - ANY FIELD can be the subject of engineering if the practitioners are applying scientific and mathematic techniques properly. Certainly primary disciplines like ME, EE, CSA, Chem E are the core. But don't punish the interdisciplinary guys that apply their PE to traditionally non engineered areas.

3 - Given Spring 2007 Standards, this list should be referenced well to various engineering pages, but due to size and nature certainly belongs as it's own page.

5/21/2007

2- I agree with that but some of these subdisciplines are ridiculous. Interdisciplinary areas like process engineering, microsystems engineering, and nanoengineering are fine in this list. Behavioural engineering, on the other hand, has nothing to do with engineering. If you follow the link it takes you to a psychology-related article. ANY FIELD can certainly be the subject of engineering, including the design of a basket, but that doesn't mean we add basket-weaving engineering to the list. My only worry is that people are getting a skewed perception of what engineering is. 5/27/2007

what is engineering education?what are its different fields? 137.101.128.164 14:07, 10 November 2005

Runaway List
It seems like this list is growing out of control. Audio engineering is not engineering, they call themselves engineers but not as a legitimate job title. At this point, any conceivable job (including mopping floors) could theoretically fall under at least one of these "engineering fields" listed. NOT EVERY job is a field of engineering!

Merge proposal
This page needs to be merged into the Engineering article. All engineering fields need to be listed there, no just a chosen few to avoid the appearance of bias. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by FactsAndFigures (talk • contribs).


 * I disagree. This list is quite long, and would dominate the Engineering article. Standard practice on Wikipedia is to break out excessively long sections into separate articles, and provide some summary information in articles that reference the breakout article. The current engineering article includes a summary in the form of a list of what the NSPE considers the "major branches" of engineering (alternative references welcome, but I think a reference of some kind is needed to avoid arguments about which branches should appear in the summary list), and directs readers to this article for a complete listing. --Allan McInnes (talk) 17:46, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

No way that 'sanitation engineering' is a "more major" branch of engineering than many on the 'fields' list, for example. And it is part of civil engineering anyway. NSPE isn't exactly an unbiased source, and it just depended upon who was in the room, online, etc. at the time when that list was drawn up.

Without a merger, a solution would be to delete the short list from the engineering article and refer readers to the fields list. FactsAndFigures 20:45, 15 October 2006 (UTC)FactsAndFigures 15 October 2006


 * I admit that I was also somewhat surprised by the presence of "sanitation engineering" on the NSPE list. It's your (and my) opinion that sanitation engineering isn't really "major". It's the opinion of the NSPE that sanitation engineering is "major". The difference is that inserting our opinions into Wikipedia counts as original research (not allowed), while including NSPE's opinion counts as providing verifiable information. Since the lead-in to the list explicitly says "According to the NSPE..." I don't see a problem including such a list. Again, if you would like to provide an alternative reference, I'd be happy to use that instead. Perhaps the Bureau of Labor Statistics would provide a more "unbiased" viewpoint. Alternatively, I'd be more than happy to see the list deleted entirely. --Allan McInnes (talk) 05:01, 17 October 2006 (UTC)


 * I think I've solved it -- see the engineering article. As such, I've deleted the merger tag. FactsAndFigures 16:10, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Clean up
This page, as well as other pages on engineering and the very Engineering category needs massive clean up. Too many non-engineering fields that use the term 'engineering' are creeping in through the cracks. The list has to include rigorous engineering disciplines which have the backing of licensing bodies/professional degrees (e.g. IET, IMechE and BEng/MEng in the UK). Network engineer, genetic engineer, etc, need to be kept out. I removed surveying engineer. The page redirects to "Surveying", and even though it claims they apply 'engineering principles' that is not sufficient reason to classify it as such. We need to get sourced material and establish 'necessary' and 'sufficient' conditions for the engineerign category on wikipedia. Your average electrician, mechanic or 'networking guy' are NOT engineers. It seems a habit to add the term engineering to the end of EVERYTHING these days. Soon we'll have janitors running amok claiming to be from that engineering discipline. There is no contest over Electrical, Electronics, Mechanical, Civil and Chemical Engineering (or their subdisciplines). These are the purest engineering disciplines. In view of the existence of sub disciplines perhaps it is best to structure this table hierarchically where possible (e.g. computer engineerung under electronics under electrical.) We need to use these as the standard against which new entries are measured. The difficulties arise in differences between jurisdictions, but we can try. Rlinfinity (talk) 01:27, 9 May 2010 (UTC)