<p>Survey - What would have liked to see more of in your undergrad engineering experience?</p>
<p>We are a group of sophomore engineering students working on a design project as part of the Buckminster Fuller Challenge, and we are conducting a survey to gather your input on the topic at hand:</p>
<p>Our project focuses on developing preventative technology through engineering education, and changing it to develop a more holistic, well-rounded engineer - one that is more ethical, and humanistic, and looks at all aspects of any situation. As current engineering students, we would like your opinion on whether you would you have liked to see more of:</p>
<p>(1) Ethics
(2) Social responsibility awareness
(3) Environmental impact
(4) Economics
(5) Policy, Government and Technology
(6) Design competitions collaborating with students with other faculties (i.e. arts and science students)
(7) Other (Please Mention)</p>
<p>...in your engineering education.</p>
<p>We feel that exposure to these subject areas would better prepare engineers for the workplace, where they are responsible for important design and management decisions, as well as constant collaboration with people from other educational backgrounds.</p>
<p>Please let us know your selections (You can choose as many as you want), as well as any other relavent information. Please also mention your undergraduate engineering major (i.e. Mech, Civ, Elec,etc..)</p>
<p>I feel like the question is flawed. Wouldn't it depend on how much of the above mentioned topics were already implemented in the undergrad curriculum? But in any case, I'll give my opinions on each.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Ethics - Ethics was the topic of a general engineering seminar, as well as a few discussions in one of my core civil engineering courses. I also encountered it during my FE study sessions. That was probably enough I feel.</p></li>
<li><p>Social responsibility - Not sure... care to elaborate?</p></li>
<li><p>Environmental impact - Besides the environmental engineering class, there wasn't any required formal instruction in this area. There was an engineering elective in sustainable design though. In my senior design course, we were required to submit an environmental impact statement (EIS) for our proposed project. For those unfamiliar with EIS's, it's basically a document that states the proposed effects of a civil engineering project on the surrounding environment in terms of noise, community impact, environmental changes, and anything else a local community board would want to know about. Would I have wanted a formal lecture on this? Maybe a two hour lecture would have been nice.</p></li>
<li><p>Economics - Took an engineering economy course. Would have taken micro and/or macroeconomics, but those classes were always full by the time it was my turn to register for classes. That's enough economics for me.</p></li>
<li><p>Policy, government, and technology - Government relations and public policy more or less? I think this is very very important, especially in the civil engineering field, where a lot of funding comes from the government. Pretty much had no exposure to this field, but would've been nice to at least understand what's going on in the government today.</p></li>
<li><p>My school had a project course every year that involved art, architecture and engineering students. I didn't find the project particularly interesting so I never took it, but the concept sounded interesting.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>The problem with implementing more topics into the engineering curriculum is where to find the time for it. It already is pretty full; in fact, my school has had problems trying to fit it into a 120 credit curriculum, so we expanded to 135. Even at 135, there are always disputes on what should be included and what shouldn't be. </p>
<p>Some of these topics can be (and are) shouldered by the professional engineering societies. Ethics and public policy are an important part of ASCE.</p>
<p>(1) Ethics - No. Engineers learn about this already if they are an ABET program.
(2) Social responsibility awareness - No. Ties in with the previous.
(3) Environmental impact - No. This is tied in with ethical stuff.
(4) Economics - Yes. I only covered economic analysis in my last quarter at school. I think it should be incorporated earlier.
(5) Policy, Government and Technology - No.
(6) Design competitions collaborating with students with other faculties (i.e. arts and science students) - Not really important. Most engineers will be working with other engineers though, so collaboration between MEs & EEs (or similar) would be helpful.</p>
<p>The main problem, as mentioned previously, is time. If you are going to add things, what are you going to cut out?</p>
<p>I forgot to mention that for environmental impact, our senior design class encouraged us to look into the possibility of LEED certification for our projects. LEED is a national sustainable building design accreditation standard that is gaining a lot of popularity nowadays. Some people are making a living off of consulting for just this standard actually. And it's slowly making its way into some textbooks. For civil engineering majors (and architecture majors, though I guess this is outside the scope of study here), this should definitely be added to the curriculum. It doesn't deserve its own course (unless it's an elective), but it should be at least be incorporated into one of the core courses somehow.</p>