As we usher into Industrial Revolution 4.0 (IR4.0), we used to hear about the potential of human loosing their job to computers. How true is this claim?

Certainly not true. Only jobs which are routine in nature without much analytical methodologies will suffer under this scenario. Marketing cannot be replaced with software, logarithm, programming and artificial intelligence. IR4.0 is loaded with intelligence where the center or nexus of processing is based on the axis of information. Human and their humane properties are totally different cases. What lacks in IR4.0 is the allocation of intelligence related to emotional, creativity and adversity which are among the different quotient dimensions.

That is why big data which is the current issue involving many professionals and various fields. Can software be programmed to be ultra reliant when it comes to automation? No. With sets of data, the only way to go forward is for queries to be made by professional (human) and process all sorts of inferential and return with more key findings in summation processes.

In highly competitive industry, generic queries are no longer useful in applying statistics or actuary science. The next approach would involve creativity in tweaking queries and exploits available statistics and opening new field for data queries and mining. The next thing is the attachment of queries to exploit human vulnerable part which is their emotional. Lastly, competitions create advantages to edge rivals. Despite multiple failure, it is the adversity of the human behind those big data queries that will hold strength in taking advantages and making suggestion to see progression of real-time data. Without adversity to thrive and going through hindrances, success remain an objective far away from an individual or a group sight.

If you read and worry about job loss and worry the future of your offspring, just remember this. Intelligence through memorization is no longer the milestone for success. It is how you prepare them for burst of creativity, emotional intelligence when dealing as an individual, group, community, subculture or human in general. Lastly, you have to groom them to be resilient and grit, avid readers, trouble shooting skills and develop their reaction in adversity.

Another recommendation from me is the need for kids to have spatial intelligence and statistical abilities based on narrative or when encounter difficult scenarios. I gave a lot of thought about this 10 years ago and that led me to learn statistics of all branches. There are so much more to learn but at least with ten years self-education, i managed to solve some gaps in engineering through statistical procedures and get these published in journal articles. Spend your time to understand statistics and let your kids learn. It is the largest investment for their future. They are never too young and you can start to teach them risk assessment, sound judgment and injury avoidance with statistics and spatial intelligence.

Today, I spent some time with young civil and structural engineering graduates. The followings are some of my advises I gave and probably some of you can benefit from these.

2. Young C&S engineers are clueless about their career path, whether to specialized in structure design, civil engineering, geotechnical engineering, hydrology and et cetera. Most would just follow the flow and accept what is offered to them and make the best out of it. It seems like a norm like many other career where specialization will take place after one is comfortable and willing to further excel in certain field or discipline. In my opinion, the best way to move forward is to understand challenges of each field and/or discipline of engineering since this particular branch of engineering is relatively vast.

3. If you are a young C&S engineer and not so sure how to progress forward, I encourage younger engineers to start with geotechnical engineering before heading for structural engineering and the rest. It is known to most C&S engineering undergraduates that geotechnic is the toughest discipline in civil engineering. Nevertheless, it is the best field to start as a young engineer and easily optimized regardless of your working condition; in design office, supervision, laboratory and testing, management or so forth.

4. Geotechnical engineering is quite a niche area of civil engineering although it is widely use for all types of works. Everything will fall back into the understanding that one has about soil as foundation, capitalization of its bearing capacity, hydraulic nature and even to the state of soil affected by geology, pedology and reaction by bacillus. The information is limitless and one can treat extracted information from field testings and site investigation as big data. There is no specific way to understand and determine particular soil properties. Moreover, it is the way that derives records and reports are translated, and dissemination of information which relies on possible structures in affecting, mediating and moderating. It is quite similar to statistics where underlying cause cannot be directly translated unless steps were taken when reviewing available information, making inferential, correlations for the purpose to explore possible diagnostic approach which reveal possible prognosis or theory.

5. A young and inexperience engineer can start with geotechnical engineering based on their pace and their job scope. First, seek for your opportunity to be relevant or work with geotechnical engineering information. The journey began with standards and specifications. In this case, as I have frequently advice, one have to start with JKR standard specifications. There are numerous but always start with basics such as Standard Specifications for Building Works, Standard Specification for Road Works, Slope Design Guideline, Inspection and Test Plan and et cetera. These references are important sources of requirements that one must be familiarized before making reference to British Standard such as BS 1377 and BS EN 5930. In this instance, I would recommend young engineers to comprehend the requirements in BS 1377 Part 1, 2, 4 and Part 9. These are essential for basic testing for all kind of works related to conventional projects where other parts may be required for detailed soil testing.

6. BS EN 5930 comes on handy when a C&S engineer start to get involved in design process. Substantial number of principals and veteran professional engineers are not competent in planning for a proper site investigation and geological interpretation based on raw data. Most time, geologists recommendations are the sole reference point of reference although geologists state disclaimer in their own report. This has been a dangerous practice and in many cases, wrong interpretation could increase the project price variation. If a young engineer could understand this particular guideline and comprehend Eurocode 7 or BS 8004 and other relevant geotechical engineering guideline, it would be a great advantage to the design office.

7. BS EN 5930 tied up closely with Eurocode 8 for seismic design especially when the Peak Ground Acceleration is close to 0.08G and the need to introduce low to medium ductility structure design. Often, this was not tackled as per my past experience as an independent checking engineer for projects in Sabah. An upgrade from status quo via Eurocode 2 to ductile design based on Eurocode 8 will lead to a significant increase the project cost and may exceed 20% of the initial cost.

8. BS 1377 is still in place with newer revision for certain parts. This particular standard have complemented most of JKR standard specifications and hold certain prerequisites related to concrete design mix with a few exceptions such as the use of JKR Probe for site investigation.

9. Other manuscripts and guidelines by British Research Establishment (BRE) are great as source for detailed ground conditioning aside from Geospec by Hong Kong's Civil Engineering and Development Department (CEDD).

10. With these references as mentioned in earlier paragraphs, I hope young C&S engineers can propel forward and be advocates to the importance of geotechnical engineering in nation building. Without proper foundation and bearing, none of the infrastructure would stand stable, robust and durable.

1. I was asking myself why is this professor asking me a stupid question when it perfectly makes sense with a simple reply. Parsimony! Why more?

2. As I am not happy, I spent almost days reading on subject that matters. I found out that his question is stupid but valid.

3. This made me understand one simple fact. A stupid question by a smart scholar leads you to realization that you are much better than who you were last week.

4. The time you consumed is worth it as you have learned more by force and critically. It is a process that is relentless but rewarding.

5. Now, reflect on the time you think that you are smart when arguing or mingling with stupids. Those are time you suffered losses in progression.

6. Time is of the essence they said. It is also relative to actions we drive to thrive in life.

7. A stupid question by a scholar is an economic equity. When you count your profit or monies, always include your opportunity costs based on efforts you have invested into.

8. It is an opportunity to learn from stupid question(s) as long as it comes from the o' wise one. At the end of the day, you are a step further than others and also ahead of other scholars.

9. Life is a continuous journey filled with excitements and discoveries. The day I die is the day I will realize, I brought too much to the grave without anyone noticing it.

The ultimate challenges of a structural engineer is never about the design - even if it is 100 storeys high. Everything we have today are empirically available for basic calculation. In addition to that, we have finite element method (FEM) to calculate all complicated structures and situation and we can even model extreme weathers manually and software.

There is one particular thing that have been the Achilles heel to most design and it have nothing to do with design but the preparation for materials where many structural engineers have left it as assumed figure or value. The problem with materials are usually not single material or metal alloy; it is usually about matrices or compounds such as soil and concrete. These mixes are usually deviate although there are abundant contemporary reference available.

Hence, there is a need to have specialists who are able to interpret or plan for desktop studies and/or term of references during the beginning of the project.

Examples:

1. Planning works for site investigations and explorations are heavily dependent on the engineer and his understanding of the geological, pedology, lithology and even hydrogeology conditions of a site before planning for type of test suitable to be conducted at the site to ensure proper parameters are derived as well as validation of seismic requirements. Without proper information, design cannot be properly justified and stand no chance to be vindicated during a value engineering phase.

2. The basic of concrete selection depends on many criteria such as exposure and application. But these are fundamental requirements where there are a lot of missing criteria aside of strength, such as the concrete class and physical properties. The concrete nature as a matrix which binds a whole different types of component requires thorough checking of materials. Water should be potted water, or else water from natural source or aquifer may lead to exposure of deleterious materials such as magnesium, sulfate, chloride as well as natrium from plantation lime, fertilizer and so on direct contamination. Aggregates need to be from proper sources which indicates less chances or risk which may trigger aggregate-related reaction coming from different type of immature rock quarries, granites, dolomites and several other types of rocks.

These are not the only risks involving concrete, it continue with several controlled material such as cement itself which have more than 10% of the maximum foreign materials allowed from less-developed countries' clinker and so on. Leave alone chemicals and other things which are part of trial mixes.

For these reasons, I contemplated and believe that there is a need for a center of research for engineering material research institute in state level in Malaysia or at least regional to say the least.

This is one of the many comments I got after completing my MBA. It started with Google and Apple organizations before Facebook told the world that they need people who are talented, not with MBA. Then the hyped bugs catched everyone who have gut to say it is pointless program. What is sad, these people have no proper education and think that experience matters the most.

2. It is true, MBA is a general masters degree which will not teach you anything specific because your degree is the one that determined your specific career and niche market you are embarking. Some hustled their way and made a specific trade their niche market for exploitation and joyfully labeled themselves as entrepreneurs.

3. Usually most professionals will work for fifteen to twenty over years before they have the abilities to master the trade and market. Some got lucky and successfully embarked into gig economics which lasted a few months before they sell off their business or worst, destroyed by big corps or copycats. I am not going to put too much effort in discriminating which industry but all industries are troubled during this pandemic era. Drought for all medium enterprises and endless plagues for many small setups.

4. MBA program have actually prepared most for this sort of era in entrepreneurship program. Entrepreneurship does not mean one have to be an entrepreneur but can co-exist as intrapreneur in order to exploit opportunities. It is called hustling safely after taking calculated risks for your own good by tapping income from a proper and formal job, and siphoning monies through side incomes and established companies within the same industry.

5. Management is a theory you can casually learn through books and theories or self-proclaimed like most. It is so simple, they are a lot of false gurus out there selling you plans on management and business administration in all sort of trades. The classics would be real estate and share trading where grotesque and ill advice cost you a fortune or schemed nicely for knowledge upgrades through free trial. Bilious scams will stay for those profoundly gullible to be acknowledged.

6. Leadership and management go hand in hand. Leaders are forged to shape, quenched in baptism of fury, and most of all tested through time. Leaders are those who are persistent and endured battles.

7. One way to gain this is through experience at your own mental, physical and financial cost. The other wiser way would be endless simulations in MBA classes. You are taught in no specific way to win an upper hand in a shrewd manner or forfeit and cut your loses in given time frame. You are trained to be malleable as in adaptive during dark hours and as a supple business artist with agility to exploit when chances arise.

8. EQ and SQ are the components that are lacking in modern management. MBA program highlights the importance of emotional quotient above intelligence quotient with all sort behavioral models and theories. A true leader achieved the level of enlightenment or actualization when he uses beyond humane approach to get things done. No persuasion is required but a satiety to his or her soul while satisfactory to the other soul. This can be driven by MBA program and achieved through actual scenarios.

9. True leaders get things done their way, their time and in their favorable condition with least effort. They spend more time fixing than managing. Their objective is very clear and simple; inner peace and in equilibrium with their surrounding. It is certainly zen, surpassing dharma and achieved mokhsa in life.