{"id":3898,"date":"2019-11-13T17:12:35","date_gmt":"2019-11-13T11:42:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sketharaman.com\/blog\/?page_id=3898"},"modified":"2019-11-13T17:12:35","modified_gmt":"2019-11-13T11:42:35","slug":"germany-how-does-germany-produce-so-many-great-engineers-and-scientists-https-qr-ae-twgpwu","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/sketharaman.com\/blog\/archive-my-content-amc360\/germany-how-does-germany-produce-so-many-great-engineers-and-scientists-https-qr-ae-twgpwu\/","title":{"rendered":"Germany. How does Germany produce so many great engineers and scientists? https:\/\/qr.ae\/TWGpWU"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m an Engineer; I\u2019ve lived in Germany for a couple of years, during which time I\u2019ve interacted with hundreds of German engineers; I know – or at least used to know – the German language (*knowledge). Therefore, I think I\u2019m qualified enough to give this question a shot.<\/p>\n

At the outset, this is one of those questions to which it\u2019s difficult to write a factually correct answer that\u2019s also politically correct and vice versa. Having seen some answers that highlight free education, revered social status of engineers, and so on, I think the politically correct ground has been covered adequately. So, I\u2019ll take the not-so-politically correct stance. My answer will also have a few stereotypes, which should be fine given that the question is itself stereotyped.<\/p>\n

With that bit of housekeeping out of the way, here are some traits about Germans that help Germany produce great engineers:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. All Germans are intelligent. I haven\u2019t come across a single dumb German.<\/li>\n
  2. Germans are rigid. \u201cMy way or highway\u201d is the default behavior. While there are many right answers for an MBA case study, there\u2019s generally only one right answer for an engineering problem.<\/li>\n
  3. Germans refuse to get rushed for time. I remember an old Patek Phillipe watch ad which said something to the effect of \u201cif a certain watch movement takes 72 days to make, we will take 72 days to make it\u201d. Patek Phillipe is Swiss but this statement captures the German working culture equally well. It\u2019s fairly common in Germany for a prospect or customer to call you up in August to give you an appointment for a meeting on 27 December (same year, thankfully!).<\/li>\n
  4. They say a German builds a house for the next 1000 years. So aversion to frequent changes is a basic cultural trait in Germany.<\/li>\n
  5. Germans have an unmatched ability to put their head down and plod through stuff, whether it\u2019s abstract formulas or engineering drawings or whatever that\u2019s deemed to be an integral part of the work on hand. In other words, Germans abhor workarounds and shortcuts.<\/li>\n
  6. \u201cRight first time\u201d belief and distaste for rework and waste.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    These are all traits that are extremely valuable in Engineering. Ergo Germany produces great Engineers.<\/p>\n

    That said, this is only true in fields of engineering that are relatively old and where pace of change is low. For example, mechanical engineering – an automobile still works on the basis of 4-stroke combustion engine invented in early 20th century; chemical engineering – soda ash is still produced using the same Solvay\u2019s process invented in the mid-19th century.<\/p>\n

    Now, let\u2019s take areas of engineering like software where<\/p>\n