Engineering Role-Models on TV

I just finished Thomas Friedman’s excellent The World is Flat (kudos to Evan for the tip). Friedman identifies ten forces that “flattened” the world as we know it, enabling digital work to flow to wherever it can be performed most efficiently. Friedman provides thoughtful analysis of the forces that are opening the doors to global competition and their positive and negative consequences. As part of this exploration, Friedman also identifies the areas that will predict America’s fate in this new global landscape. One particular shortcoming identified by Friedman is the shortfall of American students’ interest in engineering and science degrees.

While reading about the reasons for and ramifications of this shortfall, a question occurred to me: where are the engineering role models? More specifically, where are the TV shows glamorizing engineering and science on TV?

Sure, television shows such as CSI and Numb3rs perhaps provide some leadership in this area, but only in the context of fighting crime. In fact, nearly all TV shows focus on crime-centric or emergency-centric depictions of professions – think about: emergency room dramas, crime investigation dramas, and court-room dramas. Despite the portrayal of these roles on TV, does anyone realize just how boring most of these roles are in reality? Ask an MD how much his life resembles ER – very little, he or she would respond. A GP spends a lot of their time looking at kids with colds and fevers, and filling out paper. Whoopee. What about a forensic specialist – how much does their day resemble that of the characters of CSI? Again, very little. Just look at the work done recently at a pig farm as part of the Pickton investigation – digging through tons of dirt to find the smallest scraps of evidence. Hardly as thrilling as what you’d see on TV.

And yet, reality be damned, shows like CSI have had an affect, dramatically increasing the number of people choosing to enter the field of forensics.

So why not more shows with engineering bent?

Maybe the answer is that it’s hard to depict in a dramatic fashion – watching a guy hunched over a debugger step through code is a horrible way to fill a half-hour of Thursday prime time. The problem of depicting engineering and science as exciting reminds me of the problem Michael Moore encountered in “Bowling for Columbine” when asking the producer of “Cops” why he couldn’t do a show on white-collar crime. The response was simply that the producer didn’t know how to shoot that kind of show – there was no drama.

Maybe it’s time for a remake of MacGyver?