I enjoyed your article
'Going for gold' (Feature, 18 August)about how the Olympic effort for London is being helped by engineers, and recommend that it be shown to anyone who perceives engineering and science as 'boring; topics with no impact on everyday life'.
My son is keen on engineering and is considering pursuing it as a career (partly due to the fact that I am enthusiastic about my own work), but many of his friends have a surprisingly negative view of it.
When I talk to them they seem to have the impression that nobody actually wants to be an engineer, but is a career followed by those who don't know what else to do or who haven't 'made it' in what they really wanted to do.
They are also convinced that engineers work in obscure tedious areas that have little or no relevance to real life. That is why articles such as this are helpful.
My son's friends are also regularly stumped when I ask them who they think designed their ipods and mobile phones. Could it be those irrelevant old engineers?
Paul Jackson, Cardiff
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