I’ve often joked that I’ve spent much of my life looking for the easiest way to get things done. In high school social studies, we were assigned to write a poem about a current event, so naturally, I chose a Japanese haiku.
Haikus consist of:
Three text lines with syllables
five, seven and five
See? It’s that easy. Anyone can write a haiku. Unfortunately, my teacher didn’t share my enthusiasm and I received a zero, but the approach stuck with me. I have always and will continue to find the most effective and efficient methods to approach a task or solution, whether it is writing the easiest form of a poem, designing storm conveyance systems or setting pavement elevations. Simplicity is a good thing and has brought me a long way in my engineering career.
Now, efficiency in engineering doesn’t mean cutting corners or producing sloppy work (like my poem), but if you understand the everyday processes, you can simplify the way you output and create better engineering designs and construction drawings.
When you examine the physical properties found in nature you will see these same methods and patterns all around you—electricity follows the path of least resistance much like a river always flows downhill. I am sure most people have heard the saying, “the Grand Canyon didn’t form in a day.” The river established its course one drop of water at a time and over the next 5 million years formed a mighty river.
Engineering works much the same way.
It takes years of practice, diligence and patience to understand the complexities of fundamental engineering. However, when you truly grasp the fundamentals, complex problems often have clear, practical solutions.
Early in your career, solving problems often requires constant calculations, double-checking assumptions and working through each step deliberately. Over time, experience builds intuition. You begin to recognize patterns, anticipate challenges and develop solutions that are not only correct, but constructible.
For young professionals, the goal shouldn’t be to work harder for the sake of complexity, but to look for ways to simplify designs, clarify plans and make projects easier to understand and build. Clear, efficient designs benefits everyone involved, from the engineer, to the contractor and ultimately down to the client. Because when a design is simple, clear and buildable, that’s when engineering truly succeeds.
