In the early 1920s, Professor H. E. T. Haultain of the University of Toronto wrote to Rudyard Kipling, who had made reference to the work of engineers in some of his poems and writings.
Kipling was very enthusiastic in his response and shortly produced both an obligation and a ceremony formally entitled "The Ritual of the Calling of an Engineer."
In the poem, Kipling identifies engineers with Martha and her children, who continue to do the chores necessary to keep the household running rather than sit at the Lord's feet.
Although some say the writer used the adjective because the structural material did not forgive the mistakes of engineers working in it, another poem of his puts it in a different and more positive context: The iron ring's circular shape has been said to symbolize the continuity of the profession and its methods and the circle is also an appropriate symbol of the iterative engineering design process.
That bridge, whose 1,800 foot main span was to be the largest cantilever structure in the world, collapsed under its own weight because of an error in the design engineer's calculations.
In a related field, accreditation of baccalaureate programs in Computer Science and Management Information Systems are performed by the Canadian Information Processing Society, while Software Engineering can be accreditaded by both CIPS and the Canadian Engineering Accreditation Board.
In the past, engineering departments would sponsor a naked woman (or costumed man) to ride a horse across campus.
[3] Several engineering departments at Canadian university have a tradition of pulling technical pranks or practical jokes.