A couple years ago I got an email from my alma mater soliciting feedback for their "Professional Responsibilities in Engineering" course. When I took that course the focus was "you have a responsibility to do proper risk assessment and design beyond strict requirements so you don't kill people, and this responsibility to your fellow citizens is greater than a particular job or even your own career". In my opinion this is where an engineer's responsibility should start and stop: excel at your craft so people benefit from your work, and don't betray the trust the people implicitly place in you and your work.

They were trying to shoehorn "Diversity and Inclusion" into this course. I gave my feedback that a greater focus should be on analyzing and assessing risk (because this is a skill inadequately taught at pretty much all levels of engineering and is a core component of engineering where lives may be at stake), but I got the sense I was "shouting into a hurricane" despite the respect I have for the professor who taught the course.

Let's just say I'll become very nervous driving over bridges and flying in airplanes around the time I retire.

A couple years ago I got an email from my alma mater soliciting feedback for their "Professional Responsibilities in Engineering" course. When I took that course the focus was "you have a responsibility to do proper risk assessment and design beyond strict requirements so you don't kill people, and this responsibility to your fellow citizens is greater than a particular job or even your own career". In my opinion this is where an engineer's responsibility should start and stop: excel at your craft so people benefit from your work, and don't betray the trust the people implicitly place in you and your work.

They were trying to shoehorn "Diversity and Inclusion" into this course. I gave my feedback that a greater focus should be on analyzing and assessing risk (because this is a skill inadequately taught at pretty much all levels of engineering and is a core component of engineering where lives may be at stake), but I got the sense I was "shouting into a hurricane" despite the respect I have for the professor who taught the course.

Let's just say I'll become very nervous driving about bridges and flying in airplanes around the time I retire.