Engineering Fundamentals: An Introduction to Engineering, 4th ed.c

16.9 Examples of Common Symbols in Civil, Electrical, and Mechanical Engineering 533

Jerome Antonio

As a young teenager about to complete

secondary school in Ghana I was torn

between a military career and a career in

engineering. Fortunately for me, by the

time I had to make a decision the military

had announced a new scheme under

which young academically promising secondary school

graduates would be trained in the military academy for

commission into the armed forces while pursuing uni-

versity education leading to degrees in engineering,

medicine and other professions. I took advantage of this

scheme and, after three years of training, was commis-

sioned as an officer in the Army Corps of Electrical &

Mechanical Engineers. I was subsequently sponsored by

the military to enter the engineering program in the

Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technol-

ogy in Kumasi, Ghana.

My personal interest was in electrical engineering,

but I had to follow the mechanical engineering program

because that was the discipline in which my sponsors

had the greatest need for engineers. Fortunately, after

the common first-year program during which all stu-

dents took courses in all the engineering disciplines, I

realized that I liked the mechanical engineering courses

better than the others. I graduated four years after

enrolling on the program with a First Class degree in

mechanical engineering and returned to the Army. I was

assigned to duty in a large workshop dealing with the

maintenance, repair and modification of a wide range of

equipment from military vehicles and communication

equipment to guns.

Two years after leaving the university in Ghana I

was sponsored to go to the United Kingdom for grad-

uate studies. I was admitted into Imperial College of

Science and Technology which was then one of the con-

stituent colleges of the University of London. At Impe-

rial College I studied for the Masters Degree in

Advanced Applied Mechanics. I followed up with

research work leading to the PhD in mechanical engi-

neering after which I returned to Ghana.

The early 1980s was a time when an unprece-

dented downturn in the country’s economy had resulted

in a massive exodus of professionals leaving to seek bet-

ter lives for themselves abroad. The universities were

among the most severely affected by this problem.

Many academic departments in the universities faced

imminent collapse as a result of the shortage of profes-

sors. It was under these conditions that the Ghana

Armed Forces agreed to second me to the School of

Engineering in my alma mater to assist with teaching. I

was eventually released from military service so that I

could take up a permanent teaching position in the

university.

Although a large part of my working life has been

spent in university teaching and administration, I have

also had many opportunities to engage in professional

engineering activities. One of the assignments that I

found most interesting was a consultancy assignment

to carry out an analysis of the problems of a thermal

power plant. It is very fulfilling to see action being

taken on the basis of one’s professional advice. As I pro-

gressed through my engineering career I found myself

increasingly being called upon to serve my community

through membership of various bodies. I have served

on several bodies responsible for advising government

on a wide range of issues. For example, for several years

I served on the National Board for Small-Scale Indus-

tries and the National Board for Professional and

Technician Examinations. I have found that the basic

problem-solving skills learned in engineering schools

have always come in handy when performing both

engineering and non-engineering assignments.

In my professional work I have identified several

things that contribute to a successful engineering

career. Among them is knowledge of and sensitivity to

the wide variety of contexts within which engineer-

ing is practiced. As an engineer, I have often found

that the success of my work depended on my ability

to appreciate how my work impacts and is impacted

upon by seemingly non-engineering issues such as his-

tory, social and cultural practices, legal constraints,

and environmental concerns. Students can start

preparing themselves to face this challenge by being

smart with their choice of non-technical electives, by

Professional Profile

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