Is It Time to Shut Down Engineering Colleges?

Soontir C'boath · Post by **Soontir C'boath** » 2005-09-26 03:02pm

According to my advisor and professors, this has already happened. At the end, if we don't fulfill requirements such as from humanities and all the other bull they want to give us, we won't receive our certification.

brianeyci · Post by **brianeyci** » 2005-09-26 04:57pm

Speaking as a non-engineer looking in, the only justification for liberal arts courses in Engineering would be a writing course in first year, to make sure you aren't a moron who can't spell his own name. This should most likely be a hardcore course focused on technical writing like a first year English remedial course which teaches you how to communicate through writing effectively or one of those critical thinking and reading courses which teach you how to do research properly -- a seminar course.

My friend phoned me a few weeks ago and asked me on advice for an "easy" arts course to take for his Engineering requirement. I didn't know what to say, other than not to take a course with a lot of reading in it which would waste his time, and suggested he take something he was interested in so that he wouldn't be bored.

Brian

Big Phil · Post by **Big Phil** » 2005-09-26 05:17pm

Durandal wrote:The minute I saw his assertion that engineers should be responsible for the "human condition and human experience", my bullshit detector spiked. What a load of shit.

By the way, here's the guy's CV. I was curious as to just what education he possessed considering that being a dean of a department doesn't necessarily mean you have any relevant education in that area. (My school lumps computer science in with physics and English, so my department's dean is a guy with an English degree, for example.)

Unless I badly misread his CV, he has no private sector engineering experience whatsoever. He spent eight years in the Army (Corps of Engineers?) and has spent the rest of his time in school, either learning or teaching. Why does this make him qualified to be a dean of an engineering program?

Dangermouse · Post by **Dangermouse** » 2005-09-26 05:57pm

SancheztheWhaler wrote:
Unless I badly misread his CV, he has no private sector engineering experience whatsoever. He spent eight years in the Army (Corps of Engineers?) and has spent the rest of his time in school, either learning or teaching. Why does this make him qualified to be a dean of an engineering program?

Professional Certification, terminal degree
Three editorships
Nine years experience in the Corps of Engineers
Twelve years teaching experience
Five years director / founder of engineering program
Seven years head of a engineering department or program
Twenty-two awards
Twenty six grants
Referee on numerous journals
Over seventy publications in refereed engineering journals
Graduated six PhDs, sixteen Master students

I think his qualifications are fine for a dean; it is fairly obvious he has significant experience leading engineering programs, conducting engineering research, running a engineering lab / graduating engineering PhD students, teaching both undergraduate and graduate courses,writing grants, securing outside funding...i.e. qualities that most schools would probably want in their dean. Are you seriously arguing he is unqualified for a deanship?

Psycho Smiley · Post by **Psycho Smiley** » 2005-09-26 06:01pm

brianeyci wrote:This should most likely be a hardcore course focused on technical writing like a first year English remedial course which teaches you how to communicate through writing effectively

Hell, we had a Technical Writing course here, but it was the first thing they cut to make room for more artsy-crap. The course isn't even offered anymore; you just need to take one artsy course with a non-multiple choice exam to get a writing credit now.

Dangermouse · Post by **Dangermouse** » 2005-09-26 06:07pm

Psycho Smiley wrote: Hell, we had a Technical Writing course here, but it was the first thing they cut to make room for more artsy-crap. The course isn't even offered anymore; you just need to take one artsy course with a non-multiple choice exam to get a writing credit now.

Which is a real shame as writing is one of the most important skills you can develop. Being able to communicate ideas persuasively and on a understandable level is extremely important in academia, and probably just as important in industry.

Big Phil · Post by **Big Phil** » 2005-09-26 06:10pm

I'm wondering whether it's a good idea to select your educators based on their ability to raise grant money and a career as an educator, with not real-world experience (outside academia)? In business school, the really good professors were the ones who had come from the private sector and wanted to teach as their careers were winding down. The ones who had been professional teachers their entire lives were of limited value, as they didn't have much real world experience besides their academic experience.

Dangermouse · Post by **Dangermouse** » 2005-09-26 06:17pm

SancheztheWhaler wrote:I'm wondering whether it's a good idea to select your educators based on their ability to raise grant money and a career as an educator, with not real-world experience (outside academia)? In business school, the really good professors were the ones who had come from the private sector and wanted to teach as their careers were winding down. The ones who had been professional teachers their entire lives were of limited value, as they didn't have much real world experience besides their academic experience.

I agree with this, especially with a discipline like engineering in which practical application and exposure is oftentimes more educational than theory. But in this case, I think its difficult to argue that a person with significant experience in academia (theory) as well as a engineer in the Army (practical), who has also headed engineering departments at several schools, is probably qualified to be a dean of engineering school. He appears to have been a successful academian as well as professional engineer; I don't think an ethos based argument will get you very far.

The Spartan · Post by **The Spartan** » 2005-09-26 07:33pm

Psycho Smiley wrote:
brianeyci wrote:This should most likely be a hardcore course focused on technical writing like a first year English remedial course which teaches you how to communicate through writing effectively
Hell, we had a Technical Writing course here, but it was the first thing they cut to make room for more artsy-crap. The course isn't even offered anymore; you just need to take one artsy course with a non-multiple choice exam to get a writing credit now.

Jesus, my English classes consisted of 2 Creative Writing Courses, a Lit course and a Tech Writing course. I also had to take Speech. All of these came in particularly handy with all the lab reports and presentations I had to make for my various classes, particularly for Senior Design Project and my senior lab class.

Between my two degrees I've taken the above, a Management course, a Business course, an Economics course(in addition to Engineering Econ), a crafts course, a music course, 2 History Courses, Anthropology, 2 Poli Sci's, a Psych course... I'm sure I'm missing a couple that I just don't remember at the moment.

Shit if I were anymore "well rounded" I'd be a fucking baseball.

I know I'm a somewhat special case but I don't know where this guy got this shit that we need more social science courses and less engineering... is he on medication? Look at the engineering curriculum at UTA and try to tell me we need less engineering PDF! It was 79 hours of engineering counting intro courses, graphics and tech electives and I still would have like to have had a few more courses going over more detail of certain subjects.

Braedley · Post by **Braedley** » 2005-09-28 04:45pm

Psycho Smiley wrote:
brianeyci wrote:This should most likely be a hardcore course focused on technical writing like a first year English remedial course which teaches you how to communicate through writing effectively
Hell, we had a Technical Writing course here, but it was the first thing they cut to make room for more artsy-crap. The course isn't even offered anymore; you just need to take one artsy course with a non-multiple choice exam to get a writing credit now.

You know, I was just about to say that. Damn you for posting that before me!
(I want my EE 3013 back!) Oh well, I should really go to one of my other artsy courses right now.

Uraniun235 · Post by **Uraniun235** » 2005-09-28 06:40pm

I can't help but wonder if the author watched a bit too much Star Trek TNG+.

Lord Sabre Ace · Post by **Lord Sabre Ace** » 2005-09-28 08:22pm

The Yamato disaster. However, those engineers were incompetant in that they missed or ignored the design flaw.

Pu-239 · Post by **Pu-239** » 2005-09-29 03:46am

Damn, I feel lucky- only bullshit courses required for ECE are 1 literature course, oral communications (heh, which I seem to need

), and 2 social sciences and 2 history, one of each which I already got credit for from HS.

Braedley · Post by **Braedley** » 2005-09-29 09:45am

Actually, despite what was said, Psyco and I only have five arts electives (CSEs):
1 Econ: usually Econnomics for Engineers
3 HSS: Humanities and Social Sciences: 1 must be from a short list like Classics, History, Phillosophy, etc, and one must be a writing course (to replace the aforementioned EE3013 technical writing course)
1 other course subject to approval by the Dean (typically not a problem).

The Dude · Post by **The Dude** » 2005-09-29 04:50pm

SancheztheWhaler wrote:I'm wondering whether it's a good idea to select your educators based on their ability to raise grant money and a career as an educator, with not real-world experience (outside academia)?

The business school model doesn't apply here. Engineering academia is intimately tied in with industry. Engineering research costs shitloads of money and one's ability to generate research money is directly related to real-world applicability. There are the odd stereotypical pure-theory guys around, and they are invariably the ones with no money.

Second, the majority of engineering professors do have experience outside academia. The guy being discussed is a licensed professional engineer with nine years Army civil engineering experience and a "Private Practice" section in his CV, FFS.

SyntaxVorlon · Post by **SyntaxVorlon** » 2005-09-29 09:47pm

At my school is a liberal arts undergraduate college with no engineering major persay, more of a program to make someone capable of basic level engineering so they can go to another school to finish. I am however a very happy Physics major, because the Gen Eds are 9 credits in each of three divisions. That is, 2-3 humanities courses, 3 social sciences courses, 2-3 science courses. This means that the arts students who I don't need to deal with, take three easy math courses and leave it at that, and I only need to take 5 courses outside of my major in order to graduate. And I get to choose them.

The author of that article is an idiot, he's saying that we're not diverse enough therefore we should stop creating engineers. That's like asking for a brain drain to occur.