FORTRAN which is also known as a programming language for scientists and engineers was once the king of programming during 1980s and 1990s. From 2000 onward, with the introduction of more user friendly programming languages with visual interface, FORTRAN was lesser preferred by some application engineers and from 2010 onward this trend increased. However, it must be remembered that thousands of engineers wrote thousands of FORTRAN codes in these three decades and thus these codes are still applicable today in the field of Fluid Dynamics, CFD, Aerodynamics, Propulsion, Nuclear, Mechanical  and other main fields of engineering.

Thus, there is no need to reinvent the wheel as most of these codes can still be used today to solve complex engineering problems. Hence, FORTRAN needs to be learned by all the engineering students so that they have the ability to use any of these ready made programs to apply them to current engineering problems in their field. You can use advanced techniques in Finite Volumes to solve problems using fluids and you can use advanced techniques in Finite Elements methods to solve structural related problems which will help you to solve 80% of all the engineering problems. FORTRAN can be especially useful in engineering problems that are more focused toward partial differential equations as it is easier to model these equations using FORTRAN. You can use the lectures in this website to build up your knowledge of FORTRAN so that you can adapt it to the various codes.

Now with the new developments you can also use Visual Fortran to make better user interfaces.