From the article: I'm not sure whether the ritual is a relic of medieval guild systems, an echo of Freemasonry, or if there are any other deeper historical ties. A similar oath and ring ceremony...
From the article:
As Canadian engineering students near graduation, their days are filled with planning and executing elaborate pranks, hosting parties, and attending a secret ritual where they speak a solemn oath and receive a ring they’re meant to wear for life. The last bit is admittedly kind of bizarre, but I promise it is not a cult initiation; rather, it is a ceremony to mark the responsibility inherent in their chosen vocation. While the details of the ritual are not meant to be shared, certain aspects are common knowledge. For example, the oath that participants recite. It begins:
I, in the presence of these my betters and my equals in my Calling, bind myself upon my Honour and Cold Iron…
This ceremony is the Ritual of the Calling of an Engineer, which implores graduates to u>hold ethical conduct. The tradition dates back to 1925, and is, allegedly, solemn and full of symbolism (to convey this gravity, everything associated with the Ritual is generally capitalized – a convention I follow in this piece). The only guests allowed are other engineers who’ve been through the Ritual, and while the ceremony isn’t exactly secret, it is decidedly private. At the end, the oath is recited, and participants are proffered their Iron Ring, a faceted (now stainless steel) ring meant to symbolize the responsibility inherent in their chosen vocation.
...
There is a long-standing myth that Iron Rings were originally forged from the wreckage of the Quebec Bridge, which collapsed in 1907 – a reminder of the ever-present risk of failure. The Quebec Bridge was meant to cross the St. Lawrence River, connecting Quebec City to the town of Levi. Instead, its superstructure collapsed into the river, killing 75 workers and leading Haultain to propose what became the Ritual of the Calling of an Engineer.
I'm not sure whether the ritual is a relic of medieval guild systems, an echo of Freemasonry, or if there are any other deeper historical ties. A similar oath and ring ceremony was adopted in 1970 by some U.S. engineering schools.
So if you could design a binding ceremony to your profession, what would it look like, and what values and ethics would you want to be sworn to?
More than 60 thousand people ( unofficial counts goes up to 120.000 ) have lost their lives in February 6 earthquakes. Many buildings became pancakes, all infrastructure failed and logistics were...
More than 60 thousand people ( unofficial counts goes up to 120.000 ) have lost their lives in February 6 earthquakes. Many buildings became pancakes, all infrastructure failed and logistics were torn apart.
(Trigger warning ! Do Not Read Below If You Are Sensitive)
We have heard stories of children surviving rubble but dying from cold before dawn.
I have seen corpses that turned into minced blobs because buildings just kept crashing on top of each other.
Missing people being put together limb by limb as workers with dead eyes store them inside of garbage bags.
And for all that damn moment I have been wondering about 2 things:
1- There were reports on rubble analysis; cement filled with plastic bottles, ash, hay etc. Columns missing half of their iron reinforcements. Missing walls between buildings.
The type of stuff that made me question, was it even worth it ?
You can't construct an apartment without multiple engineers signing on it. Sure maybe you have some relatives here and there, maybe a few would be willing to break a few red lines to make you happy so you can reduce your building costs by what, 20% ?
But we are talking about 60 to 120k dead people here and a million wounded with 15 million directly affected this was no isolated accident. It was systematic corruption and lack of ethics on regards to human life.
2- What if my building isn't safe ?
Who the hell knows the engineer that signed of it 30 years ago was competent ? Was not greedy, was not a liar and a lazy criminal who couldn't be bothered even if it was the human life on danger.
Graduates and current eng.s needs to understand the outcome of their choices:
They must be reminded that it is the very human life within them,
That can come across this type of man-made massacre at any moment,
For if we can't trust the tile that we sleep on, the roof we stare to,
The balcony which we laugh in and kitchens we cook in,
Who can guarantee that we won't get into a preventable coffin ?
I am so, so sorry to hear that you, your friends and family, and your whole nation experienced the consequences of a wholesale failure of professional engineering and architectural standards. It...
I am so, so sorry to hear that you, your friends and family, and your whole nation experienced the consequences of a wholesale failure of professional engineering and architectural standards. It may never be possible to identify and hold accountable all the people who contributed to this disaster. Even if you could imprison and impoverish them, it would never restore what has been lost, or pay the costs to rebuild trust in the safety of your environment. Which is why the duty and burden of responsible, honest engineering is so great - a single individual's error or collaboration in unethical behavior can potentially harm millions.
I'm certain there have been comparable engineering lapses in every nation's history, whether admitted and well-documented or not. The consequences of the earthquake in Turkey were amplified by a construction boom (meaning the same errors and corrupt inspections got replicated across more structures) and concentrated urban population. The common denominator in the worst effects is politicalcorruption which creates an environment that fosters lax engineering and safety standards enforcement.
I've got a couple of generations of architects and engineers in my family. In the latter part of his career, one of them specialized in forensic engineering - investigation of engineering failures, including the Holland Tunnel disaster and Three Mile Island meltdown, as well as hundreds of death and injury incidents. Again, the most common factor was someone with authority demanding that professionals sign off on shortcuts, inadequate design and testing, deficient materials, or any other steps that might squeeze a little more money or go faster to meet an arbitrary, authoritarian timetable. It's a rare, courageous person who can stand up and say "I'm not doing that" when faced with the loss of their reputation and livelihood at a minimum; persecution of families, imprisonment, exile or death in the worst places.
I wear one of these (the much less cool US version) because my school had the option and I can usually use the reminder against carelessness. I wish more American schools would adopt it - as of...
I wear one of these (the much less cool US version) because my school had the option and I can usually use the reminder against carelessness. I wish more American schools would adopt it - as of yet I haven't met another engineer who wears one, and it has less significance when nobody knows what it means without asking first.
From the article:
I'm not sure whether the ritual is a relic of medieval guild systems, an echo of Freemasonry, or if there are any other deeper historical ties. A similar oath and ring ceremony was adopted in 1970 by some U.S. engineering schools.
So if you could design a binding ceremony to your profession, what would it look like, and what values and ethics would you want to be sworn to?
More than 60 thousand people ( unofficial counts goes up to 120.000 ) have lost their lives in February 6 earthquakes. Many buildings became pancakes, all infrastructure failed and logistics were torn apart.
(Trigger warning ! Do Not Read Below If You Are Sensitive)
We have heard stories of children surviving rubble but dying from cold before dawn.
I have seen corpses that turned into minced blobs because buildings just kept crashing on top of each other.
Missing people being put together limb by limb as workers with dead eyes store them inside of garbage bags.
And for all that damn moment I have been wondering about 2 things:
1- There were reports on rubble analysis; cement filled with plastic bottles, ash, hay etc. Columns missing half of their iron reinforcements. Missing walls between buildings.
The type of stuff that made me question, was it even worth it ?
You can't construct an apartment without multiple engineers signing on it. Sure maybe you have some relatives here and there, maybe a few would be willing to break a few red lines to make you happy so you can reduce your building costs by what, 20% ?
But we are talking about 60 to 120k dead people here and a million wounded with 15 million directly affected this was no isolated accident. It was systematic corruption and lack of ethics on regards to human life.
2- What if my building isn't safe ?
Who the hell knows the engineer that signed of it 30 years ago was competent ? Was not greedy, was not a liar and a lazy criminal who couldn't be bothered even if it was the human life on danger.
Graduates and current eng.s needs to understand the outcome of their choices:
They must be reminded that it is the very human life within them,
That can come across this type of man-made massacre at any moment,
For if we can't trust the tile that we sleep on, the roof we stare to,
The balcony which we laugh in and kitchens we cook in,
Who can guarantee that we won't get into a preventable coffin ?
I am so, so sorry to hear that you, your friends and family, and your whole nation experienced the consequences of a wholesale failure of professional engineering and architectural standards. It may never be possible to identify and hold accountable all the people who contributed to this disaster. Even if you could imprison and impoverish them, it would never restore what has been lost, or pay the costs to rebuild trust in the safety of your environment. Which is why the duty and burden of responsible, honest engineering is so great - a single individual's error or collaboration in unethical behavior can potentially harm millions.
I'm certain there have been comparable engineering lapses in every nation's history, whether admitted and well-documented or not. The consequences of the earthquake in Turkey were amplified by a construction boom (meaning the same errors and corrupt inspections got replicated across more structures) and concentrated urban population. The common denominator in the worst effects is political corruption which creates an environment that fosters lax engineering and safety standards enforcement.
I've got a couple of generations of architects and engineers in my family. In the latter part of his career, one of them specialized in forensic engineering - investigation of engineering failures, including the Holland Tunnel disaster and Three Mile Island meltdown, as well as hundreds of death and injury incidents. Again, the most common factor was someone with authority demanding that professionals sign off on shortcuts, inadequate design and testing, deficient materials, or any other steps that might squeeze a little more money or go faster to meet an arbitrary, authoritarian timetable. It's a rare, courageous person who can stand up and say "I'm not doing that" when faced with the loss of their reputation and livelihood at a minimum; persecution of families, imprisonment, exile or death in the worst places.
I wear one of these (the much less cool US version) because my school had the option and I can usually use the reminder against carelessness. I wish more American schools would adopt it - as of yet I haven't met another engineer who wears one, and it has less significance when nobody knows what it means without asking first.