Billy Vaughn Koen, a professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Texas (Austin), has defined the engineering method as:
"The strategy for causing the best change in a poorly understood or uncertain situation within the available resources"
This phrase demonstrates both the power and the limitations of engineering work. Engineers are constantly dealing with uncertainties and often don't have the time or money to obtain an understanding of the scientific principles involved. Thus, engineering work tends toward finding what works for a given situation and then using that solution until another situation arises. Engineering work is a striving for constant improvement. Interestingly, some very basic knowledge of the natural universe has arisen from engineers trying to solve a day-to-day problem. Unexpected results or unusual problems can reveal new insights into physics, chemistry, or other sciences.
Working Conditions
It isn't easy to take abstract principles and understand what work one will be doing in the future. So here's a concrete example from the electronics industry. In the late 1940s three scientists at Bell Laboratories, while trying to establish some new properties of silicon, developed the transistor, a mixture of silicon and germanium. It had such dramatically new properties that a Nobel Prize was awarded the researchers, and a new "solid-state" age of electronics began. (Previously, electronic devices were based on vacuum tubes, a complex mixture of glass bulbs, wires, and electric power.)
By comparison, in the mid-1980s a team of engineers at Intel Corporation-the Santa Clara, California, microelectronics producer-was charged with developing the 80486 microprocessor, a circuit chip that would power the next generation of computers. The team had to devise a way to cram 250,000 transistors onto a chip the size of a fingernail, and they had eighteen months to complete it. Almost simultaneously, another team at Intel was being set up to design what came to be known as the Pentium chip, with more than two million transistors, as the replacement for the 486. Each team was aware of the other, but each had different goals and timetables. The 486 team could use one type of materials and fabrication techniques, while the Pentium could use others that were not as well established commercially.
Bell scientists had essentially no timetable to meet because no one was sure whether the things they were trying to accomplish could actually be done. When the scientists made their discovery, they knew that they had developed a fundamentally new way of working with semiconductor materials. They had the satisfaction of knowing that their discovery would eventually change the way electronic equipment was made.
The Intel engineers, on the other hand, had a strict timetable to meet. Their invention (which has generated several patent applications) met predetermined performance goals. They had the satisfaction of knowing that their work would result in sales of new computers and microelectronics for their employer; it would also help the company's customers perform their work more efficiently. But they knew that their product would not live forever because just a few years later, the Pentium chip replaced the 80486 chip.
Most scientists, and nearly all engineers, work in industry. But proportionately more scientists work in academia, teaching, and research. If you are happy in a school environment, there are more opportunities with a science background than with an engineering one. Conversely, an engineering background is more likely to result in a job in industry. It's up to you to decide.
Engineering and Technology
Have you ever helped out in repairing a car, or opened up a radio and tried to take it apart? In figuring out how machines work, you can also figure out how to fix them. Keeping machines running is the fundamental task of technicians, and you may find that your interests lie more in this line of work than in engineering.
What's the difference between these two? Engineers, after all, also help keep machines running. The key difference isn't the type of machine, but in the approach taken to machinery by engineers and technicians.
Technicians, fundamentally, use and repair the machines that engineers develop. A technician will take an existing machine and apply it to some task. Or, the technician may need to discover why a good machine suddenly stops functioning.
