Grad School

Many of you know that I’m back in school. Probably because I’m always talking about it. I suppose what’s on your mind is what you talk about, and it certainly has been taking up a large part of my mind lately. I’m getting my Systems Engineering masters degree at UMBC (University of Maryland Baltimore County). I ran into a former co-worker the other day and told him about my attempt at a Systems Engineering masters degree, and he quickly rolled his eyes. “Systems Engineering, why would you waste your time with that? What the heck is Systems Engineering anyhow?”

I can’t really blame him for reacting that way. A lot of companies ranging from the very large to the small start-ups have those positions that they’re not really sure what to call them, so they slap the name ‘Systems Engineer’ on it for a title. Most likely they’re entry-level positions that require only a few functions in order to become familiar with a project or technology. So the fact that people don’t think highly of Systems Engineering isn’t really all that surprising. The problem stems from the fact that people don’t understand what Systems Engineering is or what its purpose holds.

INCOSE defines Systems Engineers as "a branch of engineering whose responsibility is creating and executing an interdisciplinary process to ensure that customer and stakeholders needs are satisfied in a high quality, trustworthy, cost efficient and schedule compliant manner throughout a system's entire life cycle, from development to operation to disposal.” So what the heck does that mean? Well, Systems Engineering is composed of many disciplines including gathering the requirements that define the solution to the problem, defining the boundaries and interfaces through partitioning, functions and functional flow, measurements of performance, risk assessment and management, and so on and so on. This is a vague and very incomplete description, but it gets the idea across.

As society’s problems become more and more complex, the solutions needed to tackle those problems will be that much more complex. The approach taken towards these problems can’t be solutions made up of one particular field. Airplanes are mechanical, electrical, aeronautical, material, and so on in nature. A great deal of planning, preparation, and program management is needed to guide so many fields to a single and complete goal. There are so many things that can go wrong, and so few things that can go right. Many of the undistinguished solutions that we take for granted everyday that increase the value of our lives are systems that had to be meticulously planned and constructed, many times over the course of years or decades. Something not to be taken lightly. I hope that I can some how be a part of constructing something so intricate and complex to be used and appreciated like the systems I use and appreciate today.