Re: Engineer's Creed

John Misasi (jmisasi@engc.bu.edu)
Wed, 5 Mar 1997 03:10:05 -0500 (EST)

I recently graduated from BU in biomed eng and there we have an optional
cerimony many of there engineers participate in during the senior
year. we recite an oath and thereby join an organization called The Order
of the Engineer (best kind of org no dues ever, just $10 for the ring).
As a result we get a nickel pinky ring that we where on our working hand
as a reminder of the oath we took.

Its origine is in a Canadian group that was founded around the time of a
collapse of a mojor bridge construction project that kept failing in (much
like the tacoma falls bridge), in the early 1900s. Therefore, an eng prof
at a univ in canada decided to try to instill Intgrity in his student
through a hyppocratic type oath and ring ceremony. One of the rumors is
that the original rings were made from the bridge reckage, but this is
untrue, since the original rings are made of a different kind of metal (I
think it is the bridge is steel and the ring or stainless steel or the
opposite... i.e. one rusts the other doesn't). Anyhow, the tradition
gradually spread throughout canadian universities and in the 50's started
to spread into US schools inthe form of the Order of the Engineer. But
it is not widespread.

John Misasi

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Email: jmisasi@engc.bu.edu
Senior Laboratory Technician
Center For Advanced Biotechnology
http://eng.bu.edu/CAB
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