Is engineering for people who are good at math but bad at writing essays or papers?

Answer 1

Being pretty good at math is almost always a prerequisite skill for becoming an engineer, but it is hardly the only one. Beyond being good at math, engineers have to have strong problem solving skills. Eventually most engineers also find themselves promoted to management positions where people skills, budgeting, and organization become critical.

As far as writing skills are concerned - sorry to tell you but good engineers also have to be very good at technical writing. While it may seem like essays and papers are not the same as technical writing, most of the skills of persuasion and analysis that are critical to writing essays and other papers are also necessary elements of technical writing. Most engineers spend a large fraction of their time writing reports - to document their work, to explain it to upper management, convince others of the accuracy of their work, convince others of a course of action based on the work they have done, and to justify expenditures or justify investments in facilities, repairs, new acquisitions, new construction, etc. My experience as an engineer is that I spent about a third of my time doing "engineering" a third of my time writing reports, and a third of my time attending meetings - including presenting the content of my written reports.

Bottom line - you need to have BOTH good math AND writing skills to become a good engineer.