Learning Engineering Practice

Chapter 10

Engineering knowledge

The key to engineering practice is understanding the nature of technical knowledge. Specialised knowledge, much of it technical, is the main attribute that distinguishes engineers from other people, and it also distinguishes the engineering disciplines from each other. For example, the technical knowledge of most electronic engineers is very different from the technical knowledge of most civil engineers.

Acquiring specialised knowledge is not that simple; most of it is not what was learnt at university. Much of it exists invisibly in the minds of engineers who are entirely unaware they possess it. Much of it, learnt informally on the job, can easily be taken for granted.

What, then, is this specialised knowledge, ...