System engineering

System thinking
Life is full of problems and challenges. It is important for us to develop a habit of system thinking so that we can overcome these difficulties. System thinking is valuable since it can help me to design smart, enduring solution to problems. I would say system thinking is a useful tool which can be used to address problems in our everyday life. It can also encourage us to see problems and solutions with an eye toward the long view.
Besides, I believe that system thinking is a special language that its unique qualities help us to communicate with others about the system around or within us. What is a system and why we need to have better understanding about it? Some may ask. To my understanding, a system is complex body formed by interaction between groups of components. Systems are everywhere. The ecological system, the social system and blood circulatory system are one of them. With system thinking, complex systems can be recognized by seeing the relationship between the components. In a consequence, we can have the ability to manage some complex work in our job.
However, developing thinking pattern in a systematic way is not an easy task. What we should do is to apply the principle of system thinking in our daily life and try to make use of it whenever there is a problem!
Can engineering learning enhance our system intelligence?
Although we are all studying engineering in the University, some of my friends still do not know what engineering learning is. As the professor has emphasized, what we are receiving is engineering education. Engineering education aims to prepare students to practice engineering as a profession through science and math education. Engineering is the art of applying scientific and mathematical principles, experience, judgment, and common sense to produce technical products to meet the need of society. Engineering learning is the study of qualities required to be a successful engineer. Through the learning in the engineering education, we are trained to be highly analytical and detail oriented. Not only we are strong in mathematics or science, we also have good communication skill. These are all enhancing our system intelligence. System intelligence is the application f system thinking. People with the intelligence have a good problem solving skills and they can understand the behavior of a component in a complex system. It is similar to what the faculty has taught us. In conclude, engineer is a profession with system intelligence.
Why learn programming?
Some people in the society misunderstand that engineers are only good in physics and mathematics. Actually, engineers learn programming well. Not only computer engineers learn programming, other engineer professions like electrical and systemic engineers learn too. But why we need to learn it remains a question in many people’s mind. Learning programming is not just a hobby, we learn a lot from doing programming assignment. I have finished three programming assignment after entering the University. What have found is that programming is a progress of problem solving. Programming is challenge to me because there are always errors existing. Whenever I want to apply new idea to the program, I need to test and debug several times so that the output of the program is what I desire to be. Finding out these errors involve logical and systematic thinking. We also need to have a full understanding of the program before errors are identified. Apart from improving the problem solving skills through programming, the progress of writing source code also provide opportunities for us to apply mathematical knowledge learnt in the lesson.
In today’s society, computer technology is becoming more and more important. It is better for engineer professions to be familiar with both the hardware and software. Programming is the basic foundation of writing software. That why it is worth learning.