Speech -- My Introduction I\'m

¶ … Speech -- My Introduction

I'm a sophomore majoring in engineering, and while that field may not sound very interesting or fascinating to all you future movie stars, hip hop stars, future millionaires, United States Senators and cable TV talk show hosts, let me quickly remind you what some of my engineering predecessors have accomplished in America.

For example, in the 20th Century engineers are responsible for the following achievements: spaceflight, the Internet, numerous useful household appliances (dishwashers, microwaves, vacuum cleaners, and many more), the automobile, the airplane, electrification, television and radios, computers, the telephone, air conditioning and nuclear technologies.

Let's see a show of hands here, how many think that the airplane is the greatest engineering achievement of the 20th Century? You can put your hands down now, you're wrong. How about those who think spaceflight was the greatest engineering achievement? Wrong again. Okay how about computers? Hands? Anyone? Sorry, you have it wrong too. I'll give you one more. How about the invention of the automobile? Who thinks the auto was the top innovation in engineering in the 20th century? Sorry, I'll end this quiz and tell you what the National Academy of Engineering voted as the top engineering invention of the 20th Century.

It was ELECTRIFICATION. Right, the top development of the 20th century allowed electricity from a central station (fired by coal, gas, oil or nuclear) to flow outward through the country on high-tension wires, over the mountains, the fruited plains, the rivers and lakes, into the villages and cities in order to power the factories, schools, stores, hospitals and homes. Without electrification, the nation's economy would stall and children would be reading Tom Sawyer by candlelight, which isn't such a bad idea come to think of it. Save energy, light a candle and read a book.

Seriously though, speaking of the Tom Sawyer -- Huckleberry Finn -- Mark Twain connection, I can't help but feel really bad for all those towns and farms and cities along the Mississippi River that were recently flooded. Millions of acres totally submerged in muddy Mississippi River water. Crops ruined. People sent fleeing from their homes. Schools shut down, mom and pop corner stores wiped out.

Why do you think my fellow students and I want to become engineers? We think we can come up with better, safer and more reliable solutions to flooding. Why didn't the levees hold along the Mississippi River? Why didn't the levees around New Orleans hold during Hurricane Katrina? Why did so many people die in Katrina?

The plain and simple answer is shoddy engineering. The Army Corps of Engineers did an incomplete job and messed up in New Orleans. The engineers that built the levees along the Mississippi River did not protect the citizens. There will be more flooding in the future, and the time is now to train competent students to think up new and better ideas to protect people and property.