I am also an engineer, although I stopped practicing it years ago.
I still get my alumni magazine. It used to have articles of real engineering achievement. During the 1990s and onward to today, the articles and profiles shifted to PC garbage, climate change, environmentalism, affirmative action, and globalism.
Yep. The first big sea change was the "oil crisis" under Carter. Then a guy named Amory Lovins pushed his concept of "negawatts" where utilities invested in conservation instead of generation. After that was the huge effort for renewables and shutting down all fossil generation. The 1990s ushered in what you say -- all the PC garbage, climate change, affirmative action, management by lawyers and not engineers. Then anti-fossil and anti-nuke got amped up to insane levels.
I'm surprised the lights stay on at all any more.
That collapsed bridge in Florida was affirmative action designed.
That is one reason socialism inevitably leads to societal collapse. Once the universities and then major businesses are taken over by leftists the focus moves from technology to politics. And politics never kept a generator running, or developed an innovative new industry.
China has avoided this problem by importing vast amounts of technology and ignoring the Marxist ideas their revolution started with. They kept the one-party elite rule and the tyranny of the state against individuals but run the rest of the nation like a capitalist economy.
The fools in our universities today are wasting the opportunity to really improve the world instead of chasing after political ideas.
I’ve experienced the same thing. Michigan Engineer used to be about young geeks making cool stuff. Now it’s all about climate change, poverty, and diversitaciousness.