What Is the Difference Between Engineering and Engineering Technology?
The line between the two is becoming more blurred since responsibilities overlap more now than ever. In general, an engineer has a theoretical understanding of how something is happening. The curriculum for engineers includes high-level math, theory, and conceptual design. Whereas, the curriculum for engineering technology programs focus on the implementation of engineering principles to solve problems. Engineering Technology tends to be more hands-on and application oriented teaching students to operate, maintain, trouble-shoot, inspect, and test systems. Graduates from these programs can speak intelligently about the technology to communicate with those on the plant floor, upper management and customers and users for sales purposes. It is possible that both engineers and engineer technologists may design a product to solve a problem, but the engineer would be more likely to discover a new technology, practice, or principle. An engineering technologist would use the new technology created by the engineer and apply it to the product they are designing. The engineer develops the big picture and the engineering technologist works out the details. For more information, download for free: "Is There An Engineer Inside You?" by Celeste Baine.
