Environmental Engineering for the Future

Date: 9/1/2023

Assessment: 

My field of choice this year is Environmental Engineering, This is because I have always appreciated the beauty of nature and I would like to make a positive change within this nature. I chose the engineering portion because I love everything that has to do with mechanical engineering and I love working with my hands. I know the general overview of what to expect in this field but I did not comprehend the many different applications this field had in the real world. After reading “Why Environmental Engineering Is Vital for Our Future”, I learned the true extent of this field, be it air quality, water quality, etc., and the history of how it had vital roles in saving the environment and improving people's quality of life. I also learned of the extreme demand for my chosen profession, both in the environmental, and engineering fields.

The first thing covered in this article is the many different fields of environmental engineering. The many fields mentioned shocked me at first because I was not prepared for such a repertoire. There are so many industries an environmental engineer can enter, the article mentions water manipulation (draining or filling bodies of water), sanitation, designing sewage systems, keeping air clean, keeping water clean, and even protecting people and the environment from radioactive and toxic materials. All available fields have given me a deeper understanding of how vital this profession is and have given me more confidence in the area because of the many ways environmental engineering can help the world.

The article then shifts to how environmental engineering had an important role in history, improving the lives of many and in some cases, saving entire cities. The article mentions how Rome used sewage systems and aqueducts to keep water within the city-state and keep diseases from sewage away from the city. Some consider these 2 environmental engineering initiatives necessary to the thriving of the once all-powerful Rome. What shocked me was the article went further back in time to the Indus River Valley, where there was a grid system used in towns, and water was moved around for more efficient use. These are different historical examples of how environmental engineering played big roles in the improvement of human life as a whole.

After an extensive portion of the article covering the history of environmental engineering, the article delves into the specifics of air quality and water quality procedures of an environmental engineer. I learned quite a lot from this page of the article because I have always been curious about how such things are done. This portion helped me truly grasp what I might cover in the next couple of months of this program. This page on real-life applications and how environmental engineering can be used has set me on this topic. The mention of the need for more food for our growing numbers, the new possible farming methods that may come out shortly and their safety to the environment and the consumers, and spatial and environmentally safe housing for our growing population are all possible routes to improving the world that all apply to environmental engineering. I am ecstatic and can’t wait to network and learn more about environmental engineering.