Love this article, it's a very important message to spread!

I think a number of parents and children alike are not sold on the "impact" that engineering can have to make a positive difference on the world. Many STEM-savvy students will choose other careers e.g. occupational therapy, teaching, or medicine because the impact is so direct so they're perceived as having a better chance to help people.

I used to think this myself, too! I became an engineer anyway though because I don't want to do those careers, I want to work in technology. Science and problem solving just makes me happy. Thankfully as an electrical engineer I've worked on heaps of cool impactful projects, like devices to aid medical diagnoses and support cancer research, a robot for helping children with learning difficulties, software used on robots for exploring underwater caves and robots on the international space station and Mars (!), and a surgical robot for burns treatment! We're not sitting in an office doing engineering for no reason, there are heaps of ways that engineers can help people!

For more reading, there are other concrete (hehe) examples of ways that engineers are changing the world at the Engineers Australia website: https://createdigital.org.au/community/people/ In the end it's all about what sort of job you/your child would enjoy doing.