Is everyone capable of becoming an engineer????

I have been thinking of writing this but never really found the time to do so. Now a days students, specially the ones appearing in class 12th exams, or BTech final, etc., have a very few options open to them, or so they want to believe. For those who are opting class 12 exams with as their subject are made to believe that Engineering / Medical (E / M) are the only options left. Strange. And unfortunately teachers and parents alike want them to believe that anything other than E / M is like committing a crime. Very strange. I sometimes wonder whether it is a stupidity that people in general commit themselves into by mistake or by choice!!! Whatever it is, no body is ready to look beyond.

The life beyond E/M is where the life now a days really starts. When I was taking my class 12 exams we had a mere 4 engineering colleges around; today the count stands at more than 50. We are doling out engineers with impunity without thinking for one moment if they all are worth being called engineers at all.

According to a research done at Harvard University in early 80's, human beings have 7 types of intelligence.

Linguistic: everyone has this. People with more of it can learn lots of languages. also they are good at writing stories etc.

Logical: Related to mathematics and reasoning and related areas.

Musical: We all can sing a bit. Most of us can learn to play musical instruments too. But not everyone can create music. For that you need musical intelligence.

Spatial: People with this are good at gauging depth, length and height of objects; can easily visualize a system at work.

Kinesthetic: It is related to the control of body movements. Give a paint brush to MF Hussian and one similar brush to me. MF Hussain will pull of a masterpiece and I, a disaster. Similarly almost all athletes and players have this intelligence.


The other two are Inter-personal and Intra-personal intelligence.

The most important thing is that to be an engineer one would require a combination of Logical and Spatial intelligence.

How many of us you think has these two in right combination?

Not many actually. and yet every Tom, Dick and Harry is out to become an Engineer. I wonder what they will end up becoming.

The most important thing is that everyone should be given a chance to figure out the right type of intelligence that they have and grow accordingly.

I think it is a very important thing that all teachers and parents should keep in mind. and obviously all students should try to see what they are good at.