To my Cooper engineering alumni friends and potential new students:
What we learned at The Cooper Union and, - possibly, more importantly, - afterward.
As member of a book club and host for a group discussion, I found myself obligated to read a book decrying the virtues of college educations at our nation’s elite institutions - or, more particularly, for this author, ‘institution’ - namely, Yale - possibly best known to most engineers for its locks.
Excellent Sheep - the miseducation of the American elite and the way to a meaningful life, William Deresiewicz
According to the author, many Elis depart their alma mater, along with a whopping amount of cash, disgruntled because they have not ‘enriched their souls’ during college. As a result, upon graduation, they find they must sell their souls by accepting demeaning, although often lucrative, employment among their influential and affluent peers in the financial sector of our society.
If Yale University “makes seekers, thinkers, “passionate weirdos” … who insist, against all odds, on trying to get a real education … feel like freaks”, “notoriously anti-intellectual (institutions) like Princeton or Dartmouth, are clearly far worse.”
If nothing else, Willie’s rants made me wonder.
What did we learn at The Cooper Union?
I would like to compile a list of the things our little group took away upon graduation - or developed as a latent outgrowth of our treasured four - or, often, five years - under the Third Avenue El. (It shouldn’t surprise anyone to learn that Cooper engineering students routinely flunked courses or flunked out entirely. There was no economic downside to penalizing an underperforming student at an institution that did not charge tuition.)
Let me start our list:
We learned to swim. It was a requirement for our graduation. Life saving was also demonstrated.
We got to mount and ride horses in Prospect Park, Brooklyn. Mine was very tall.
We climbed the ramps at the then new Guggenheim museum. I had never been in a museum before.
They sat us down and made us listen to classical music. On graduation, I tuned exclusively to WQXR.
We were introduced to bowling - an indoor sport that you had to pay to play.
Civil engineering students spent eight weeks over three years practicing route and cadastral surveying while living in communal dormitories at Green Camp. We had to find ‘True North’ and help with the chores.
Our voices were recorded on a 78 rpm record as we presented a brief speech in class. (I was terrified.) I still have my record, although I am not sure I have equipment to play it.
All engineers took eight (count them, 8) humanities courses as part of Cooper’s regimen of making us ‘well-rounded’. We read poetry, wrote papers on history, and abstracted newspaper articles. Many felt lucky to earn C grades in these non-technical courses. No apology was ever put forth that engineers can’t write. Engineers had to write - and with integrity.
We learned to stay up all night - even, all weekend - on building projects, working together, teaching each other how to solve design problems in the process. “If you are too tired to go to sleep with Marilyn Monroe, you can go to bed.”
It may seem unimportant now, but check your handwriting and printing today. Did anyone manage to leave Cooper with poor penmanship or marginal drawing skills?
For survival, we worked in pairs, groups, teams. I have long believed that most of what I learned in college, - particularly, efficient and effective study habits, - was, primarily, from my co-students.
Free Opera in English at Peter Cooper’s venerable Great Hall where I fell in love with Madama Butterfly. Also, Pete Seeger, Jelly Roll and a trail of famous and soon-to-be-famous Americans. (In honor of Peter Cooper, I established similar public ‘forums’ at the University of Missouri (Environmental Engineering Forum) and the American Water Works Association annual meetings (Universities Forum).)
Most important, I trust we all left college with the hope, as well as hard-earned, tangible tools, for leading a meaningful and productive life. In addition to the strict disciplines of engineering, I believe we had learned to see the world in color.