My engineering dichotomy...

I find the topics I study and work with (structural and geotech stuff the most) really interesting and useful. I guess I define my sense of usefulness for my studies by how much I can better the world around me. See, what I like about civil engineering is that there's a very short metaphorical distance between what you design and what happens in the real world, that's fantastic in my opinion (though we very much need the theorists and researchers in our world). Designing a massive building would not fall into my definition of usefulness since I really believe that the best designs return the earth to their natural conditions or complement the natural surroundings as much as possible.

My issues with engineering arise from the societies that isolate engineers and the profession from the rest of the population. The professional organizations establish the code of ethics that engineers need to abide by, which sounds perfectly legitimate considering the impact of what they design. Where I start to question them is when they take so much pride in displaying the legal issues of people claiming to be engineers, or when an engineer is exposed for gross violations of the code of ethics. I feel as though the engineering organizations and societies instill a sense of cultish secrecy, and then they wonder why not enough people (women for example) are joining. Myself still looking from the outside, why would a woman feel completely comfortable in a field where the societies perpetuate a "gentleman's club" atmosphere? flawed logic I know, but I get that feeling sometimes. I think the reasoning is that you want to keep the societies as a think tank for those trained to think in diverse ways and to keep the profession honest means to kinda close it off to the public. It doesn't have to be this way, it's their current model because people are apathetic or approve of the way things are currently. At the same time, professional engineering is trying to reach out...I don't know seems a little too much like our current closed-door government for my liking.

So that's where my thinking is at for engineering, and why I feel that staying in school will a) let me avoid the parts I do not like b) delay my entry to the industry until I perhaps come to terms with the dichotomy or c)...something else I have not thought of. I spent a while mulling this post over though it's still not complete, there's soo much on this topic I want to explore.