Is It Time to Shut Down Engineering Colleges?

[phongn]

Crossposting this from another board; an article by the University of Vermont's dean of engineering:

With the return of students to campuses this month comes annual hand wringing over the lack of diversity in our science and engineering classes. The United States is at a 14-year low in the percentage of women (16.3 percent) and African Americans (7.1 percent) enrolling in engineering programs.

An engineering student body that is composed largely of white males is problematic not only because of its narrow design perspective, but also because failing to recruit from large segments of the population means the number of new engineers we produce falls well short of our potential.

Although this is not a new problem, it is becoming ever more urgent. We are faced with an engineering juggernaut emanating from India and China, with more than 10 Asian engineers graduating for every one in the United States. Educated at great institutions like the Indian Institutes of Technology or Tshingua University, these engineers are every bit as technically competent as their American counterparts.

So here we sit at the beginning of the 21st century, in the most technologically advanced nation on the planet, with a comparatively small supply of home grown engineers, facing an explosion of technical mental horsepower overseas.

Why fight the tide? Couldn’t we simply import all the engineering we need? Couldn’t we play the economic advantage and close our expensive colleges of engineering? Do we gain anything by educating engineers in the United States?

I would argue that, with a few exceptions, we really don’t. As they are currently trained, American engineers are at relative parity with their foreign-born counterparts, are more expensive, and offer no competitive advantage. But there is a way out of this predicament, one that would provide a raison d’etre for American engineering programs, and make for the kind of design the planet now so urgently needs.

Faced with the increasingly complex design challenges of the 21st century — an era where resources of every kind are reaching their limit, human populations are exploding, and global-warming related environmental catastrophe beckons — engineers need to grow beyond their traditional roles as problem-solvers to become problem-definers.

To catalyze this shift, our engineering curriculum, now packed with technical courses, needs a fresh start. Today’s engineers must be educated to think broadly in fundamental and integrative ways about the basic tenets of engineering. If we define engineering as the application of math and science in service to humanity, these tenets must include study of the human condition, the human experience, the human record.

How do we make room in the crowded undergraduate engineering curriculum for students to explore disciplines outside math and science – literature and economics, history and music, philosophy and languages – that are vital if we are to create a competitive new generation of engineering leaders? By scaling back the number of increasingly narrow, and quickly outmoded technical courses students are now required to take — leaving only those that teach them to think like engineers and to gain knowledge to solve problems. Students need to have room to in their schedules for wide ranging elective study.

There is a need for advanced engineering training, to be sure, but the place for that is at the graduate level — in one of the growing number of nine-month masters programs, perhaps.

Teaching engineers to think, in the broadest, cross-disciplinary sense, is critical. Consider two examples of the failures of the old way.

The breach of the levees in New Orleans, which has unleashed a torrent of human suffering, came about not solely because engineers designed for a category 3, rather than a category 4, hurricane. It was caused by decades of engineering and technical hubris, which resulted in loss of wetlands and overbuilding on a grand scale. Would engineers who had studied economics, ecology, anthropology, or history have acted the same?

Or consider Love Canal (or any of a thousand other environmental debacles of the last 50 years). Would designers who had read Thoreau’s Walden, studied Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony, or admired Monet’s poppies have allowed toxic chemicals to be dumped into the environment so remorselessly?

To prepare our engineers to engage in the major policy decisions we’ll face over the next 25 years — many of which hinge heavily on the implications of technological design — we must truly rethink what they need to know when they graduate.

If we do, our progeny stand a fighting chance of having a life worth living. And by giving engineering a larger, more socially relevant framework, expanding it beyond the narrow world of algorithms, the field should prove more attractive to women, minorities, and other underrepresented groups.

Just imagine. A growing and increasingly diverse number of domestically trained engineers — equipped with the broad insight and critical thinking skills the world needs, which will also give them a competitive advantage over their foreign counterparts.

Overhauling the engineering curriculum would be challenging to be sure, but it’s a design worth building.

[Darth Wong]

The notion that environmental disasters are caused by engineers lacking liberal arts courses rather than spendthrift profiteering executives is so fucking absurd it makes my brain hurt. And I don't see how he can say that Indian-trained engineers are at parity with homegrown ones when there is not even parity among homegrown engineers. An engineer from Nowhere University in the middle of Montana is not going to be as good as an engineer from a better university, for example. And the social responsibility of engineering is already a part of the engineering curriculum at better universities.

[tharkûn]

The breach of the levees in New Orleans, which has unleashed a torrent of human suffering, came about not solely because engineers designed for a category 3, rather than a category 4, hurricane. It was caused by decades of engineering and technical hubris, which resulted in loss of wetlands and overbuilding on a grand scale. Would engineers who had studied economics, ecology, anthropology, or history have acted the same?

Yes. Unlike the idiotic strawman presented here the levees weren't drawn up by a single egineer with only a single viewpoint. Literally thousands of egineers were involved in the ongoing levee projects and it is inconceivable that none of them studied economics, ecology, anthropology, or history. Besides which the reason why the levee were Cat 3 and not Cat 4 or Cat 5 is simple - the understanding was that the odds of a Cat 4 storm hitting NO were small, and the government was unwilling to spend the money on protection when it had other less catostraphic, but more common problems to deal with.

You have a limited budget and you have the meteorologists, not the egineers, telling you that stronger protection is not going to be needed that often. Sorry but economics says don't build stronger levees (nevermind that the meteorologists appeared to be wrong).

Or consider Love Canal (or any of a thousand other environmental debacles of the last 50 years). Would designers who had read Thoreau’s Walden, studied Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony, or admired Monet’s poppies have allowed toxic chemicals to be dumped into the environment so remorselessly?

Yes. Is the author stupid enough to suggest that no egineer in the entire late 19th and early 20th centuries read Thoreau or studied Beethoven and then went on to contribute to an environmental debacle? The statistical odds of that claim are frankly astounding. Egineers don't come out of cookie cutter molds with no classical education, while there may be some stasticly common attributes, nothing is constant.

Just imagine. A growing and increasingly diverse number of domestically trained engineers — equipped with the broad insight and critical thinking skills the world needs, which will also give them a competitive advantage over their foreign counterparts.

Egineers don't have critical thinking skills? What planet does he live on. Broad insight? What the bloody hell does that mean? Frankly policy tends to be set by politicians, their aids, and occassionally scientists and doctors; if anyone needs better education (like say broader science exposure) the first groups are definately it.

The author has obviously never had substantial interaction with egineers in a professional setting. The author obviously has a liberal arts education and feels inferior because of it. Maybe the author might try asking some real egineers in the real world their opinions about how 'admiring Monet's poppies' would have impacted their lives; or perhaps try broadening his perspective to actually include reality.

[Darth Wong]

The levee example is particularly annoying because engineers have been urging the construction of stronger levees for decades, and it was a lack of political will that kept them from being built.

As a general rule, in any given organization the engineer is always the guy pushing for higher quality and safety, while the higher-ups in Management are pushing for lower cost and delivery time.

[HemlockGrey]

So the way to make our engineers more competitive and less expensive is to reduce their actual knowledge of engineering?

Well, that's one for two, anyway...

[AniThyng]

The author has obviously never had substantial interaction with egineers in a professional setting. The author obviously has a liberal arts education and feels inferior because of it. Maybe the author might try asking some real egineers in the real world their opinions about how 'admiring Monet's poppies' would have impacted their lives; or perhaps try broadening his perspective to actually include reality.

Oh, if only he really were such a person, then we can all rest easy that the idiocy is confined to jealous liberal arts airheads. Unfortunately, he *is* a professional engineer, as even a cursory google search of his background would turn up...not to mention his position as Dean of Engineering at Vermont...which means he's in a position to implement his tripe...what now?

[tharkûn]

The levee example is particularly annoying because engineers have been urging the construction of stronger levees for decades, and it was a lack of political will that kept them from being built.

Yep the egineers are getting blamed for the cockups of the politicians, meteologists, and possibly construction crews.

Oh, if only he really were such a person, then we can all rest easy that the idiocy is confined to jealous liberal arts airheads. Unfortunately, he *is* a professional engineer, as even a cursory google search of his background would turn up...not to mention his position as Dean of Engineering at Vermont...which means he's in a position to implement his tripe...what now?

Eh more proof to the point that all egineers are cookie cutter cut outs is crap. I still would doubt this guys professional compotency until proven otherwise, virtually every egineer I've talked to has been the guy in the loop most concerned with safety. Partly this is because they have far more stringent ethics codes and partly because if things cock up badly they have a direct legal responsibility.

In any event what should be done is for the student body to stage rather loud protests to get his ass fired, unfortunately being egineers they have better things to do with their time. Hopefully Vermont's Engineering reputation will take a nose dive should he implement this crap and should that happen the faculty will then get him sacked and the whole experiment serves as a textbook example of how not to design egineering curricula.

[Lord Sabre Ace]

What kind of idiot would think you can make our engineers perform better by teaching them more English and History and less Math and Science? Sure, you need to know how to read. But I think you would already know how to if you're in college. Engineering is applying Science to everyday life, not applying English.

[Braedley]

I am forced, due to my current position and the position of my university and the acreditation board to at least partially agree with him, but not with his reasons. The program here at UNB is one of the most comprehensive programs in Canada, and is tailored to each individual discipline. Consequencly, it is also one of the hardest programs, especially if you want to finish it in four years. The accreditation board wants the university to reduce the requirements for graduation, but trading in several 4 or 5 credit hour courses for some 3 credit hour arts electives is not the proper way of doing this. The thought that an extra history course will make me a better engineer is ridiculous. It may make me a better person, but it won't change my ability to solve a problem, and that's what engineers are paid to do. Although we don't want our graduates to be saying "Yesterday, I can't spell engineer, now I be one," there is a line that has to be drawn, and this guy has crossed it.

[Stark]

The worst part of this article (aside from the terrible 'examples') is that compared to engineering, the liberal arts are so easy it is unnecessary to actually add them to the curriculum, taking time away from engineering subjects and weakening the primary skillset.

How can this guy think anyone gets through university without exposure to ideas beyond their course? All the hottest girls are in marketing, the strangest people in visual art, etc etc: the idea that engineering students should be forced to take largely useless units that teach them nothing they couldn't learn by themselves is crazy.

[Gil Hamilton]

Yep the egineers are getting blamed for the cockups of the politicians, meteologists, and possibly construction crews.

Did the meteorologists cockup there? I mean, they've been saying what a catastrophy a hurricane hit to NO would be for just as long as the engineers had said that the levees needed reinforced. It's one of the reasons that the engineers were so keen on reinforcing them.

[tharkûn]

Did the meteorologists cockup there? I mean, they've been saying what a catastrophy a hurricane hit to NO would be for just as long as the engineers had said that the levees needed reinforced. It's one of the reasons that the engineers were so keen on reinforcing them.

Early on, as in the 70's, the meteorologists thought that such a storm would hit only extremely rarely. More recently, as in say the 90's, they have been just as active as the egineers calling for upgrades. Their cockup was being just a bit too confident of their models and running a bit to far with too short a baseline.

Basicly the egineers asked the right people what they needed to design against, they weren't given the right answers (which no one had at the time) and then after making their solution way back when government inertia kept running off old data.

[Darth Wong]

I would also add that every engineering school I know already has a group of non-engineering elective courses in the required courseload. Mind you, it's up to the student to choose which electives he'll take, and a lot of engineers take business courses (both for the ridiculously easy work and for the possibility of getting an MBA).

In my case, I took a film studies course, a 3rd year 20th century Russian history course, a philosophy course, and an Old Testament theology course. Yes, I spread it around (and people wonder how I got started bashing fundies; the OT theology prof was a religious man but he was no more sympathetic to fundie bullshit than I am, and he actually called Biblical literalism a terrible distortion of the purpose of the Scriptures).

But to be honest, I didn't really learn that much from those courses that I didn't already know, and in no case did I need help from the prof. I learned nothing in those courses that I couldn't have learned by simply reading a few books on my own; it's not like engineering where you really need to be thoroughly tested on your knowledge to make sure you didn't get it wrong.

Liberal-arts is the only faculty which has the insufferable conceit of pretending to be able to teach well-rounded personalities to students. As if such a thing can be taught in a classroom.

[The Grim Squeaker]

the OT theology prof was a religious man but he was no more sympathetic to fundie bullshit than I am, and he actually called Biblical literalism a terrible distortion of the purpose of the Scriptures

Has he written any books? He sounds quite interesting.

Also pardon me for asking a copy-cat question but why would studying history that doesnt concern geography or climate conditions affect the design of a dam?
[/quote]

[Crown]

I would also add that every engineering school I know already has a group of non-engineering elective courses in the required courseload. Mind you, it's up to the student to choose which electives he'll take, and a lot of engineers take business courses (both for the ridiculously easy work and for the possibility of getting an MBA).

Ditto for my university (RMIT). I took a philosophy/psychology course, a virtual technology course and a photographic studies course.

Consequently I take kick ass photographs, got a high distinction for my virtual reality course by never turning up and to class (just used to online curiculum guide) I didn't even turn up for my presentation - I submitted it via video as I was holidaying in Canberra at the time!

[Durandal]

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.)

[Xenophobe3691]

I don't understand. Everyone in my State (In a public Uni) is required, by Florida Law, to take certain courses to "round out" the individual and give somewhat of a background understanding in other subjects.

Is this not done in Vermont or something?

[Darth Wong]

I don't understand. Everyone in my State (In a public Uni) is required, by Florida Law, to take certain courses to "round out" the individual and give somewhat of a background understanding in other subjects.

Is this not done in Vermont or something?

Or perhaps he's trying to light a fire under the asses of his students, who he sees as being too complacent. That's one of the benefits of multi-disciplinary real-world "challenge" projects such as Challenge X; they do force engineers to work outside of their respective areas of specialization, as real-world employees of companies do. Perhaps he is concerned about their ability to do this on his particular campus.

Of course, his particular university either didn't submit an entry to the environmentally friendly and socially responsible Challenge X project or failed to make the grade for entry, so this is an ironic commentary on his position.

[drachefly]

I would understand a course on the history of the falls of various civilizations. The engineers are what keep things running properly; and they should be armed to argue why what they do is important with real-life examples.

[Captain Cyran]

I loved the fact that at the beginning of his rant he talked about how engineering courses are failing because, of all things, there are less women and african americans. I really do not see how the hell that has ANYTHING to do with how narrow-minded or open-minded, or hell, have anything to do with anything involving Engineering.

[Darth Wong]

I loved the fact that at the beginning of his rant he talked about how engineering courses are failing because, of all things, there are less women and african americans. I really do not see how the hell that has ANYTHING to do with how narrow-minded or open-minded, or hell, have anything to do with anything involving Engineering.

He's been infected by a fatal case of Politicus Correctinimus.

[Faqa]

Hooo boy. The moment I saw the title, I knew the argument, whatever it was, would end up shredded into bloody chunks on the floor.

That said, the basic idea that engineers should be responsible THAT broadly for their projects is ridiculous. It's not their job. Their job is to take the request made and build it the best they can, as I understand(and if I don't, I'm sure I'll be corrected....).

I suppose he's quite right that an engineer can't always tell if a project is a good idea on the grand scale of things. It's not his fucking job to know, and, more importantly, too much for one person to know.

There is SUPPOSED to be an oversight who understands both the requesting party and the technical guys who do the work, who can parley, translate demands and make the sort of decisions that article is talking about...

This is at any rate, how it works in programming projects. I can't see a reason why the parallel doesn't work here.

[Darth Wong]

An engineer actually has the responsibility to protect the public from negligent behaviour on the part of his employer. Unfortunately, his power to do so is limited to public criticism or reporting him to the authorities (which is useless if the corporation is not actually breaking the law). Ultimately, it boils down to politics; if the governments are not willing to act, then an engineer's only real leverage (ie- to be a whistle-blower and alert the authorities) is rendered totally useless. And we have seen that engineers have tried going to the media, only to be ignored.

Perhaps that is his real point. Engineers should learn music and drama so they can become musicians and actors, who are listened to by the public and the politicians.

[Faqa]

True, but in a technical context, no? I.E, if you're told plan a bridge and are given insufficient time or resources to make that bridge stand up to the strain on it, you are obliged to inform on the bosses' idiocy.

I don't think that's what the OP's saying here. He's talking about the engineers somehow being supposed to see the big picture on their projects and whether they're good in the grand scheme of things. Now, I doubt your responsibilities extend quite THAT far.

[Keevan_Colton]

True, but in a technical context, no? I.E, if you're told plan a bridge and are given insufficient time or resources to make that bridge stand up to the strain on it, you are obliged to inform on the bosses' idiocy.

I don't think that's what the OP's saying here. He's talking about the engineers somehow being supposed to see the big picture on their projects and whether they're good in the grand scheme of things. Now, I doubt your responsibilities extend quite THAT far.

Yeah, like what impact on indiginous culture or language will the building of an international airport have etc...rather than, is the ground suitable, will the building stand up to floods/earthquakes/tornadoes/whatever else might happen...

One is a legitimate concern for engineers, the other isnt...