The Engineering Technologist
Authors: Babet F.H. 
Published: March 2010

The engineering technologist can be utilized to relieve the engineer of manyof the tasks which the latter may regard as being mundane. This paper describes the training of engineering technologists, points out their capabilities and suggests areas in which they can be effective in reducing the engineering workload.

INTRODUCTION

THE ENGINEERING TECHNOLOGIST SOCIETY OF ALBERTA defines a technologist as anindividual who has completed two years of post high-school education and hashad two or more years of related experience. This is quite similar to therequirements for registration as a Professional Engineer. The formation of the Engineering Technologist Society was initiated and guided by members of the Association of Professional Engineers.

ENTRANCE REQUIREMENT

Entrance to most of the two-year post-high-school engineering technology programs can be obtained by students who have a high-school diploma with a " B" standing in Mathematics 30 or 32, and credit in Physics 30 or 32 or Chemistry30. These requirements vary slightly from program to program, dependent upon the kind of engineering technology which the entrant wishes to study. The physics and chemistry courses offered at NAIT, which follow the grade XII courses on similar subjects, are designed to hold the interest of those students who have grade XII credit and simultaneously impart new knowledge tothe students who are encountering the subject matter for the first time.

Some of the engineering technologies are designed with three differentprograms (Figure 1). Students graduating from an articulated vocational high-school program enter directly to year " B" at NAIT. This is the standard two year post-high-school technology program. Students who have followed the academic high-school program have had no vocational courses. These students may enter NAIT after completing either grade XI or grade XII. If they enter the three-year program, they receive instruction in some grade XII subjects and inthe equivalent of the high-school vocational subjects in year "A". They then enter year " B" at the same level as those students who graduated from the vocational high schools. Students who enter NAIT with a 55 percent academic high-school average may enroll in the year " AB". This is a longer, accelerated year in which students receive instruction equivalent to the vocational subjectmatter offered in year "A" and year " B". Year " C" is common to all students in the course.

ORGANIZATION OF NAIT

At the time of writing, NAIT offered a total of 27 technology courses. When the school opened in 1962, there were 16 technologies. Few programs a redesigned and offered as industrial demand dictates. The technologies from which the oil and gas industry does take bulk of its technological employees arethose known as the Engineering Sciences Technologies. These include Civil, Instrumentation, Drafting, Architectural, Surveying, Materials, Plastics and Gas. The remainder of the 27 technologies are under other departments withinthe Technology Division of the school. NAIT is organized into four divisions: Technology, Business and Vocational Education, Extension, and Industrial. The scope of this presentation does not allow detailed discussion of the latterthree divisions, but it should be pointed out that there are many courses offered in these divisions which produce graduates which could prove to beassets to many oil and gas industry activities. A few examples of the coursesand corresponding employee classifications which could be of interest topetroleum industry recruiters are: Data Processing (machine operators andprogrammers), Chemistry (laboratory analysts), and Heavy Duty (gas plantoperators) vocational high-school programs assigned specifically for entranceto a particular technology course.