[speedplane]

> As mechanical engineering students at my college, ... always the culpability of the engineer is placed first and foremost to us

In college we learned about the engineering & product decisions that led to the challenger disaster. There's a famous line that is rumored to have been said at one of the last design meetings before the disaster: "lets take off our engineering hats and put on your management hats". Personally, I doubt this sentence was uttered, but even the rumor conveys the point.