[img_inline align=”right” src=”http://padnws01.mcmaster.ca/images/EWBwordcloud1.jpg” caption=”First-year engineering students were asked what they thought the role of an engineer was as part of a workshop organized by the McMaster chapter of Engineers Without Borders. The answers are illustrated in this word cloud.”]

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That was what first-year engineering students at McMaster were asked as part of a workshop organized by the University's chapter of Engineers Without Borders (EWB).

Their responses have been neatly summarized in a colourful, computer-generated word cloud in the shape of McMaster Engineering's fireball.

Some of the more prominent of the dozens of words that make up the cloud include: world, problems, better, solve, technology, make, improve, help, create, society, people, innovate, lives, build, and design.

“This is who we are as engineers and the challenges we need to face,” interpreted Erica Barnes, past president of EWB McMaster and one of the main organizers of the exercise, after sifting through hundreds of responses written out on index cards. “This is a way to help break down the barriers to what engineering is and help students see the bigger picture.”

“I think it's important for the rest of the University and the community to understand what is of concern to today's engineering students,” she added.

The exercise was a new component of the “Root Causes of Poverty” series of workshops run by McMaster's EWB. Volunteers present to all first-year engineering students in the Introduction to Professional Engineering course (1P03). Material presented in the workshops encourages students to think about engineering from a big-picture perspective and to consider how their decisions affect people and their communities, whether in a developing country or in Canada.

“This is a great example of the creative energy and broadening perspective that our EWB chapter brings to all McMaster's engineering students,” said David Wilkinson, dean of the Faculty of Engineering.

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