Humanitarian Engineering Workshop: New Perspective on Engineering Careers

In a very exciting trip to the Netherlands, I and a group of 24 other engineering students in addition to 25 humanitarian action students attended a workshop under the title of 'Humanitarian Engineering'. From the title you may tell that the workshop is about the interdisciplinary new area of employing engineering in the humanitarian action field.

The workshop was sponsored by Texas A&M University Qatar (TAMUQ) and Network of Humanitarian Action (NOHA). It lasted for five days in which we discussed some interesting topics like:

• Cultural Competence

• Humanitarian Diplomacy

• Rapid Prototyping in the context of Humanitarian Engineering

Why I considered this workshop important is a different story. I am a senior who has no clue what I want to do in my life, and thinking that I have one year left to decide on that puts some pressure on me. Opportunities like these open my eyes to a different perspective and possible career paths that I may follow after graduating.

Before going to the workshop I didn't imaging that engineers will be needed in the context of humanitarian action. Another interesting thing I learned is to see the different points of views of engineers compared to humanitarians. That became obvious the most during discussions and when we had to come up with our own projects. Both groups think in a different way, not necessary one is better than the other, on the contrary both compliment each other.

After finishing the workshop I realised that I can do a lot with my engineering degree, and I don't necessarily have to follow the traditional career paths like becoming an engineer sitting behind a computer. Humanitarian Engineering is a new interesting area that allows you to use your engineering knowledge to help others, while working in a team of different expertise. One career path that I concluded after attending the workshop is working with an organisation like 'Engineers Without Borders'.

If you are interested to search more, I recommend some of the websites below that I personally refer to:

NOHA: https://www.nohanet.org/

Humanity X: http://www.humanityx.tech/