Tom's Commitment to Ethical Principals
- Tom Hall
- Apr 3, 2020
- 2 min read
The engineering council has four principles on how to act in an ethical manner. These principles are repeated in the Royal Academy of Engineering as well as the IET code of conduct. These principles are the bedrock of how engineering should be done professionally and if broken serious action should be taken.
In this post I am going to talk how each point relates to an undergraduate engineer and why it is important to follow these standards.
The first is honesty and integrity, this applies to me as student because we need to be honest in our abilities. If we are not honest it is far to easy to get into a situation we are 100% not ready for. If a student were to lie and cheat there way through the degree they would be a near useless employee as they wouldn't know anything about the job they're training for. By sticking to this value it shows that everyone who has reached the end of the degree has earned it and that companies can trust that we know what we're doing.
The next is having respect for life, the environment and public good. Although this does not effect students directly the idea needs to be taught and reinforced while studying to prevent mistakes when working in the real world. Without this principle safety standards would never be met and the public's trust in the profession would plummet, the public expect things to just work and as engineers it's our duty to accommodate that with adversely effecting the environment as well.
The third principal is accuracy and rigour, and I would ague the most relevant for students. Students need to be able to do their job well and if they become sloppy and loose accuracy that could jeopardise a whole project. They also need to understand what acceptable risk is as ignoring it entirely is fatal and trying to eliminate it completely is impossible. Without learning to be accurate people are destined to make a mistake.
The final principal is leadership and communication. This is all about how the profession functions, and how the public views the organisation. Students need to understand what the job entails and be aware of issues that engineering technology cause in society. They also need to learn how and when to use there professional opinion to raise issues and challenge things that cause professional concern, such as certain statements and policies.
As an aspiring engineer it is important that I commit to these principals and incorporate them into my everyday work in order to be the best engineer I can be.#
1) Statement of Ethical Principles [Internet]. Engineering Council; 2017 July. [cited 2020 Apr 3]. Available from:
2) Royal Academy of Engineering statement of ethical principles [Internet]. Royal Academy of Engineering; 2017 Jul. Statement of Ethical Principles [Internet]; 2017 July [cited 2020 Apr 3]. Available from:
3) Professional ethics [Internet]. IET The Institution of Engineering and Technology; 2019 Oct 3 [cited 2020 Apr 3]. Available from:
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