suggestion for changes in engineering education

College Majors Engineering Majors
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<p>I like this article, but I don’t think engineering should a post graduate curriculum.That will increase the demand of engineers as a whole.</p>

<p>[UF</a> College of Engineering](<a href=“http://www.eng.ufl.edu/newsroom/articles/detail_articles.php?id=993]UF”>http://www.eng.ufl.edu/newsroom/articles/detail_articles.php?id=993)</p>

<p>Engineering Education — a Hot Topic
BY Mark LaPedus
December 17, 2008
For more than a decade the state of engineering education has had experts in panic mode. Are there enough kids pursuing engineering? Is outsourcing killing the American engineering edge? How do we, as a nation, get kids interested and excited about science and engineering? </p>

<p>SAN FRANCISCO — More calls for a change in engineering education surfaced at this week’s International Electron Devices Meeting (IEDM) here.
James Plummer, Dean of Engineering and Professor of Electrical Engineering at Stanford University, warned that U.S. universities must change or reform engineering education to prevent further shortfalls in the discipline.</p>

<p>Change is also needed to become more competitive. In the United States, as well as Europe and Japan, student interest in engineering is on the decline. In contrast, the field of engineering is exploding in developing nations like China and India.</p>

<p>“There is a lot what’s right about engineering education,’’ Plummer said in a keynote address at IEDM, entitled ''Educating Engineers for the 21st Century. I would argue that we could do better.”</p>

<p>There is ‘‘a real need for change’’ in engineering education to survive in the ‘‘increasingly global’’ and ‘‘flat world,’’ Plummer said.</p>

<p>He said that today’s engineering schools are packed with difficult curriculum, which, in some cases, ‘‘filters out’’ a large number of students in the field. To reverse the trend, there are two schools of thought to change engineering education at the undergraduate level.</p>

<p>On one end of the scale, Plummer said that engineering could follow the same model as law and medicine. Students learn any discipline (i.e. art, physics) at the undergraduate level and then move to the targeted field.</p>

<p>A more realistic approach is to mix current engineering curriculum with other types of classes in related and unrelated fields. He proposed the following changes in U.S. engineering schools:</p>

<p>Top 10 changes proposed for schools</p>

<li>Engineering schools need to develop ‘‘T-Shaped People.’’ In other words, engineers need to learn their discipline in depth. But they also need to expand and broaden their education in areas beyond math, science and related classes. </li>
<li><p>Engineering schools must teach students how to innovate and be creative. For example, Plummer showed how students in teams were supposed to create something from mere ‘‘post-its.’’</p></li>
<li><p>Engineering schools must teach entrepreneurship. For example, ‘‘Introduction to High Technology Entrepreneurship’’ is one class in Stanford’s curriculum.</p></li>
<li><p>Engineering schools must teach students how to work well as a member of a diverse team.</p></li>
<li><p>Engineering schools must offer undergraduate research programs in a faculity lab or related settting.</p></li>
<li><p>Engineering schools must offer student competitions (i.e. Darpa Grand Challenge).</p></li>
<li><p>Engineering schools must provide global knowledge and experience. For example, Stanford offers summer internships in companies worldwide.</p></li>
<li><p>Engineering schools must teach better communication skills.</p></li>
<li><p>Engineering schools must have life-long learning programs, such as online courses and free lectures.</p></li>
<li><p>Engineering schools must teach why engineering is important.</p></li>
</ol>

<p>Engineers are key to solve the next wave of problems in technology, life sciences and energy needs. ‘‘We need to (let people know that) engineering is the occupation of choice for the best and brightest,’’ Plummer said. ‘‘Unfortunately, this is not the case today.’’</p>

<p>For more information from the Gator Engineering perspective
[the</a> florida engineer | university of florida](<a href=“http://thefloridaengineer.eng.ufl.edu/issues/0801/educating.php]the”>http://thefloridaengineer.eng.ufl.edu/issues/0801/educating.php)</p>

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<p>As far as I know, most schools have already thought of most of those suggestions, and have been trying to implement them into their curriculums for a while.</p>

<p>Also, the suggestion to make engineering follow the medicine model is just ridiculous!</p>

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<p>^Not true. Most schools' curriculum is still 90% like what it used to be 3 decades ago. Maybe couple classes here and there. "thought of/'trying' to implement" doesn't translate to real change.</p>

<p>Northwestern is one of the few schools that had made a major change to its curriculum:
-</a> Northwestern University: McCormick School of Engineering</p>

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<p>I think it's a great idea to change the engineering curriculum so that one has the option to follow the medicine/law model. In other words, engineering should follow the architecture model.</p>

<p>The current system is one option. The engineering bachelor's degree is sufficient to obtain most entry-level positions. </p>

<p>There should be a second option that gives students from various undergrad backgrounds to get a graduate degree in engineering, if they satisfied the prerequisites (physics, chem, calc courses). There are some people who want to go into engineering, but also want to study something else during their undergrad studies for whatever reason. </p>

<p>If one wants to be a registered architect, s/he has to have a professional degree in architecture, either a 5 year B.Arch or a 2 (or 3) year M.Arch. Those pursuing M.Arch's can come from pretty much any undergrad major. I don't see why this can't be done for engineering as well. How can it hurt?</p>

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<p>I hate the idea of more school. That would mean going to a top school could cost 250k, (holy crap). I want to learn engineering and get a job, and that I why I am going to school. Screw learning psychology or gender studies. They already have the 4/1 mENG option at a lot of schools so that is kind of a moot point. </p>

<p>Also, the "engineers" that china produces are more like mechanics than actual engineers. They actually produce less similarly educated engineers than the US. I am paraphrasing from an article that was posted on this forum about 8 months ago.</p>

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<p>
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I hate the idea of more school.

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<p>The problem is, engineers really need it. It was a staggering realization for me when it finally clicked that I was graduating with my bachelors and didn't really know anything. So, I went to grad school, figuring that I'd know enough when I left there to feel a little more competent... And when I graduated with my masters, I STILL didn't feel like I knew anything, but I'd become more comfortable with that fact. Nobody knows anything when they graduate. Unfortunately, we need to know a lot more. I really wish I had about two more years' worth of school left ahead of me, because there's a lot more I wish I knew about that I'm just flat-out not going to pick up in industry.</p>

<p>
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That would mean going to a top school could cost 250k

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</p>

<p>Ay, there's the rub. Maybe we'd get paid more like doctors if there were fewer of us willing to actually go through the degree programs. It kind of bothers me that engineering is the "easy route to decent money"... It cheapens the profession somewhat.</p>

<p>The problem is that the amount of information that engineers need to know in order to do their jobs well is expanding at an exponential rate, and we're still cramming all that information into four years' worth of school. It's just not enough anymore. Something's gotta give, and speaking as someone who's gonna have a hand in hiring and training the engineers of tomorrow, I'd rather it not be the quality of the education.</p>

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<p>I agree that engineers don't know enough upon graduation (even after a MS), but I feel that the industry acknowledges that and is compensating for it through on the job training. New graduates start out more like apprentices than anything else. What it comes down to is do you learn in the classroom or in the field? I think both ways work.</p>

<p>I have experiences similar to aibarr, as do many of my friends who graduated with me 3 semesters ago. Your degree will give you the basics, but by no means are you even close to being an engineer on the first day of your job.</p>

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<p>
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New graduates start out more like apprentices than anything else. What it comes down to is do you learn in the classroom or in the field? I think both ways work.

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<p>I agree. I'm just not sure what that does for/against our reputation within society as a whole. Being an "apprentice" within your field kind of smacks of trade, rather than profession. If you went to more school like most other professionals do, would that change our image? Would we get paid more like doctors and lawyers? Would Mr. Scott finally get as much respect as the rest of the crew of the Enterprise? We may never know.</p>

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<p>
[quote]
I agree. I'm just not sure what that does for/against our reputation within society as a whole. Being an "apprentice" within your field kind of smacks of trade, rather than profession. If you went to more school like most other professionals do, would that change our image? Would we get paid more like doctors and lawyers? Would Mr. Scott finally get as much respect as the rest of the crew of the Enterprise? We may never know.

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<p>Don't doctors go through an "apprenticeship" as well? Residency?</p>

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<p>^ I agree</p>

<p>I am OK with the whole, more school if you want it scenario that we have now, and All jobs have a learning curve that takes a while to get into. Since engineering is a technical job, the curve is just much steeper. Even if every engineer had a PhD, there would still be at least a 1 year break in period wherever you get a job. Heck, right now, Im a HS student busing tables at a restaurant, and it took me about 8 months to get the job down well. </p>

<p>What I am opposed to though is changing the process of getting an engineering degree by requiring some stupid Liberal arts and crafts degree before you can go to "engineering school" and the meat and potatoes of crunching numbers.</p>

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<p>
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What I am opposed to though is changing the process of getting an engineering degree by requiring some stupid Liberal arts and crafts degree before you can go to "engineering school" and the meat and potatoes of crunching numbers.

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<p>I agree. I am merely proposing that one should at least have that option.</p>

<p>aibarr IS suggesting more school, but only additional engineering courses. I think after 2015, to become a professional engineer in some states, you'll need a master's degree. ASCE has supported this for quite a while now, advocating for the MS to become the first professional degree instead of the bachelors. </p>

<p>It's probably best for the profession to adopt this additional requirement. Look at what was being designed half a century ago and look at all the new stuff being designed now. An engineering education back then was 4 years, and now it's still 4 years, even with all these advances. Scary, isn't it?</p>

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<p>
[quote]
I agree. I'm just not sure what that does for/against our reputation within society as a whole. Being an "apprentice" within your field kind of smacks of trade, rather than profession. If you went to more school like most other professionals do, would that change our image? Would we get paid more like doctors and lawyers? Would Mr. Scott finally get as much respect as the rest of the crew of the Enterprise? We may never know.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>I don't think apprenticeship is such a bad thing. In software engineering, there are a lot of employers who are unhappy with recent graduates, even if they have extensive backgrounds in principles and/or theory, because they don't have enough practical experience. I hear about these types of complaints all the time - employers who feel that new graduates don't have enough experience implementing code that does appropriate bounds checking (very important for security purposes), memory management, and error handling, to give a few examples. The code may be algorithmically efficient, but fails when subject to excessive loads, or causes the spread of unwanted traffic when compromised. Universities don't always have time to teach this, and cover the principles and theory. Some people are lucky enough to get this in internships or summer jobs, but it doesn't always suffice for making the jump to full-time work.</p>

<p>On another note, I don't think it's a bad idea for an undergraduate engineering degree program to take more than four years. I understand, however, that this would make such education prohibitively expensive for some people. In this regard we are behind lots of other countries that make quality engineering educations much more affordable, even if they take more than four years.</p>