Cellular phones and the microwave are accomplishments from the engineering field. This is what we are doing, turning ideas into reality. We are going to keep on doing that for the new millennium. They can do something that they may not have done in school but can apply the approach of solving problems to come up with new solutions. It's not just dreaming up ideas, it is actually putting them to reality.
Engineers are the designers and sometimes the implementers of other people's ideas.
They are the ones who understand the basic science involved and figure out how to apply it.