Engineering with heart

A purpose-driven, service-oriented education

By Dr. Will Hughes, Director of the School of Engineering, UBC Okanagan

Towards the end of their degree, engineering students in Canada receive an iron ring at a ceremony known as the Calling of an Engineer. Worn on the pinky finger of their working hand, the ring is a symbol of an engineer’s ethical responsibilities and a visible pledge of the service orientation of the profession and its role in serving people and communities.

Calling of an Engineer

That service orientation has never been so important, given the growing frequency and intensity of the challenges facing our local communities and world – from resource scarcity and water shortages to health crises and the far-reaching impacts of the climate emergency. These challenges are having a profound impact on our ecosystems and economies.

As engineers, we are uniquely positioned to use our problem-solving skills and technical knowledge to do what we can to address these complex challenges. Over the course of our education and careers, we learn how to identify and scope out problems, to imagine potential alternatives, and to design and test our ideas to generate creative solutions for processes or products.

It’s easy to get caught up in the technical elements of an engineering education that enable us to be problem-solvers. And while it’s important to become proficient in applying our knowledge of thermodynamics or differential equations or kinetics to real-world problems, the skills required to be a purpose-driven professional go far beyond this.

skills required to be a purpose-driven professional

This is why we are so focused at the School of Engineering on creating a values-based learning environment where our students achieve far more than technical proficiency.

We do this through required courses on technical communication, project management, economic analysis, and law and ethics. Throughout each program we create opportunities for students to practice and grow their soft skills, which, despite their name, are often the hardest skills to develop. I am thinking here of the ability to communicate, to manage conflict, to navigate power dynamics and to know how to use the tools of society – like policy – efficiently, effectively and responsibly.

Learning to be a professional

The strong connections we have with the community where we live, work and study also support these efforts. UBC has built deep and trusted relationships with public and private sector organizations who value our expertise and commitment to developing innovative solutions that are making a difference in both our local context and that can be scaled up for broader impact.

To take just a few clean tech examples, in early 2025, we opened H2LAB, one of the most advanced hydrogen research labs on the continent, and our Clean Tech Research Centre is an innovation space where we are pushing what’s possible in clean technologies.

At labs across our campus and in locations far beyond it, we are advancing partnerships and cross-disciplinary research that will ultimately improve lives both here in BC and around the world.

Clean Tech Research Centre

These deep relationships with organizations beyond the university also translate into opportunities for our students. They are able to work on projects driven by industry, government and community organizations starting in their first-year engineering courses, during co-op work terms, in undergraduate research opportunities, and in meaningful and locally relevant capstone projects in the last year of their program. Students discover first hand how they can use their skills to make a positive impact.

The foundation provided by a UBC engineering degree is exceedingly valuable, giving students a distinct way of thinking about the world and a strong understanding of their responsibility to use their strengths in service of others. The holistic, integrated skills learned here are transferable to any number of paths, whether that’s practising as an engineer or pursuing a different career entirely. How many artists, designers, educators, doctors and CEO’s are engineers? Many!

No matter what engineering students intend to do with their degree, they are all eligible to attend the Calling of the Engineering ceremony at the end of their education.

Receiving and wearing the iron ring is an acknowledgement of all that they have learned (and will continue to learn!) and a reminder of their ethical commitment and responsibility to serve the greater good and use their ingenuity to shape a better future.

In the spring of 2025, I spoke at the ceremony in Kelowna. I invited students to wear their ring proudly while they solve problems and serve society; to feel its weight and the commitments it represents to themselves, their family and the world; and to reflect on all those who have supported their professional growth.

This year was the 100th anniversary of this uniquely Canadian event and the 20^th anniversary of the School of Engineering at UBC Okanagan. It seemed appropriate then, to close my remarks to the students by encouraging them to continue upholding the values they’d learned over their time at UBC as they do the good work to serve the calling of the engineer and do the hard work of serving of our community, both near and far.

In addition to serving as director of UBC Okanagan’s School of Engineering, Dr. Will Hughes is a Tier-1 Canada Research Chair in DNA Engineering. He’s creating molecular machines, liquid computers and nucleic acid memory all made from DNA. Check out the article How Canada is at the forefront of unpacking the potential of DNA data storage to learn about Will and his work.