Posts Tagged ‘development’

An education should give students the tools to adapt and prosper in a world characterized by change. In such an environment, technical competence is not enough. Education that prepares children for life must have basic skills for creativity, intellectual curiosity and honest inquiry boost. The progress and development, both personal and social, are dependent on these elements. approach to innovation and progress in the ability to challenge a new way and offer solution. Read articles about Ross Global Academy to get more informations about educations.

Education must also arise if a pluralistic tradition in which different perspectives, ethnicities, religions and perspectives are evaluated not only because it is right and prosper, but also because the pluralism, the climate is more suited for creativity, curiosity and investigation.It should also help to encourage students a variety of views on some fundamental questions of human existence in mind asked: “What is truth?” ”What is reality?” And “What are my duties to others, for my country and to God?” (find education at Ross Global Academy). At the same time strengthen the educational foundations of identity in a way to revive and strengthen them so they can withstand the shock of change.

What students, is not the most important measure for education. The real test is the ability of students and graduates on what they know not to get involved and find a solution. They must also be able to draw conclusions that are the basis for making informed decisions. The ability to make decisions based on sound information to, and use a thorough analysis should be one ofmost important goals for all education efforts. As students develop these skills, they can start with the most important and most difficult step aside: to learn to make decisions within an ethical framework. For all these reasons There is no better investment that individuals, parents and the nation to do so as an investment in training of the highest quality. These investments are taken into account and to keep training the kind of consciousness our social world so urgently needs. Go to Ross Global Academy to get useful informations.



Through its accreditation process, the U.S. engineering education system has continually reexamined and re-energized the engineering curricula. Engineering fundamentals have been and will continue to be the core of the engineering curriculum. But because engineers now operate in a world where their accomplishments are often more limited by societal considerations than by technical capabilities, they are engaging in a wider range of activities throughout their professional lives. Thus, engineering education must take into account the social, economic, and political contexts of engineering practice; help students develop teamwork and communication skills; and motivate them to acquire new knowledge and capabilities on their own. Because many modern engineering projects require a combination of several disciplines, students also need exposure to the integrative field of systems engineering.

In essence, an engineering education today aims to prepare an engineer to be successful in the changing workplace. It aims to equip students with technical knowledge and capabilities, flexibility and an understanding of the societal context of engineering.

Engineering schools should not seek to develop these contextual and process skills through separate courses, but by incorporating them into existing curricula and through non-classroom activities. Coursework should feature multidisciplinary, collaborative, active learning; and take into account students’ varied learning styles.

One factor that will promote development of students’ “process” skills is widespread use of multimedia, worldwide information networks. Using this resource, students can access new information and coursework, as well as interact with other students, researchers, practicing engineers in industry and government, and experts from around the world. These changes in the teaching and learning environment will make engineering education more attractive to both students and faculty, if faculty are given the opportunity to stay up-to-date.

Finally, all engineering colleges must address the issue of ethics. While ethics is a complex and difficult topic, engineering administrators and faculty must help students understand that throughout their careers they will encounter ethical issues which they will need to recognize and deal with rationally. Whether engineers are conducting engineering research, managing a company, or building bridges and office buildings, their decisions affect the lives and property of the greater community. Students must understand the importance of upholding that public trust.

While recognizing and encouraging diverse institutional missions and changing industry needs, colleges of engineering must re-examine their curricula and programs to ensure they prepare their students for the broadened world of engineering work. This process has begun among most engineering colleges and must be accelerated with the aim to incorporate:

• team skills, including collaborative, active learning;
• communication skills;
• leadership;
• a systems perspective;
• an understanding and appreciation of the diversity of students, faculty, and staff;
• an appreciation of different cultures and business practices, and the understanding that the practice of engineering is now global;
• integration of knowledge throughout the curriculum;
• a multi-disciplinary perspective;
• a commitment to quality, timeliness and continuous improvement;
• undergraduate research and engineering work experience;
• understanding of the societal, economic and environmental impacts of engineering decisions;
• and ethics.

In whatever way an engineering college defines its mission, to be successful, it must ensure that its faculty reward system supports its goals. Faculty members often face the difficult task of trying to balance the several activities they need for professional advancement, such as research and undergraduate teaching, with a host of new activities their colleagues, students and the public expect them to accomplish. These can include curricula development, interdisciplinary collaboration, work with industry, development of continuing education programs, community outreach, and mentoring of other faculty members and students. As engineering colleges develop institutional missions, they have an opportunity to recraft their faculty reward system to better synchronize faculty rewards with their new, or re-affirmed, institutional expectations.

Changing the faculty reward system will not be an easy task. Faculty rewards are heavily driven by incentives created across the entire university and are part of a nationwide network. Nevertheless, it is important that rewards reflect the goals of the institution and it is important to begin the conversation now. As each institution establishes its vision and charts new directions, it should ensure that its faculty reward system supports the institutional goals.

We live in a time of revolutionary change. Not only is the world relying increasingly on technology for economic growth and job development, but the nation is making the difficult transition of refocusing a significant amount of its technology investment from national security to international economic competitiveness. At the same time, we view technology as important in helping solve many difficult societal problems, from creating environmentally-sustainable development and improving communications, to devising more effective and cost-efficient health care systems. Communications developments alone are leading to profound redefinitions of such concepts as “community,” “library,” “corporation,” and even “university.”

Within this technological context, engineers play an ever more significant role. They develop new manufacturing processes and products; create and manage energy, transportation and communications systems; prevent new and redress old environmental problems; create pioneering health care devices; and, in general, make technology work. Through these activities, engineers create a huge potential for the private sector to develop national wealth. As noted by Richard Morrow, past chairman of the National Academy of Engineering, “the nation with the best engineering talent is in possession of the core ingredient of comparative economic and industrial advantage.”

And just as important as their specific technical skills, engineers receive valuable preparation for a host of other careers in such areas as finance, medicine, law and management. These professions require analytical, integrative and problem-solving abilities, all of which are part of an engineering education. Thus, engineering is an ideal undergraduate education for living and working in the technologically-dependent society of the twenty-first century.

Responding to Changing Needs

One of the strengths of engineering education in the United States is the broad spectrum of engineering colleges whose development has been unconstrained by a single, centrally-prescribed mission. The more than 300 colleges of engineering range from highly research-intensive institutions to those that focus largely on undergraduate education, with many variations in between. Even with the considerable differences in missions, undergraduate engineering education programs maintain universal core curriculum content and minimum standards through the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET), a national partnership between academics and practicing engineers. Additionally, most engineering schools have forged close relationships with industry and benefit from annual assessments of their programs by external advisory boards that have strong industry participation.

While U.S. engineering education has served the nation well, there is broad recognition that it must change to meet new challenges. This is fully in keeping with its history of changing to be consistent with national needs. Today, engineering colleges must not only provide their graduates with intellectual development and superb technical capabilities, but following industry’s lead, those colleges must educate their students to work as part of teams, communicate well, and understand the economic, social, environmental and international context of their professional activities. These changes are vital to the nation’s industrial strength and to the ability of engineers to serve as technology and policy decision makers.

Most important, engineering education programs must attract an ethnic and social diversity of students that better reflects the diversity of the U.S. and takes full advantage of the nation’s talents. Not only does the engineering profession require a spectrum of skills and backgrounds, but it should preserve its historical role as a profession of upward mobility.

In response to these needs, engineering colleges throughout the country are experimenting with new approaches to curricula, rethinking traditional teaching modes, and developing innovative ways to recruit and retain students from underrepresented groups. The largest and potentially most revolutionary effort is led by the consortia of colleges funded by the National Science Foundation’s Engineering Education Coalitions program. These national engineering college consortia each include a variety of schools ranging from predominantly undergraduate institutions to the most research intensive. The consortia are working to redesign curricula and improve teaching methodologies, each offering a different perspective and strategy.

While it is too early to gauge the success of the coalitions, they exemplify the engineering education community’s leadership and willingness to adjust to change. We applaud and encourage these efforts, but also stress the importance of including partnerships with industry and government in reformulating engineering education.

One of the first distinctions that must be made is between science and engineering. It is not a simple distinction because the two are so interdependent and intertwined, but whatever difference there is needs to be considered.

Science is the study of “natural” phenomena. It is the collection of theories, models, laws, and facts about the physical world and the methods used to create this collection. Physics, chemistry, biology, geology, etc. try to understand, describe, and explain the physical world that would exist even if there were no humans. It is creative in building theories, models, and explanations, but not in creating the phenomena that it studies. Science has its own philosophy with an epistemology, esthetics, and logic. It has its own technology in order to carry out its investigations, build its tools, and pursue its goals. Science has its organizations, culture, and methods of inquiry. It has its “scientific method” which has served as a model (for better or for worse) in many other disciplines.

Science is old. It was part of the original makeup of a university or college in the form of natural philosophy. It came out of antiquity, developed in the middle ages, blossomed in the renaissance, was the tool of the enlightenment, and came into its present maturity in modernity. Indeed, the history of science is, in some ways, a history of intellectual development. This is certainly only true in conjunction with many other strains of philosophical, economical, theological, and technological development, but science is a central player in that story. Science is often paired with the arts (and Humanities and Social Sciences) in the “College of Arts and Science” of a traditional university.

Engineering is the creation, maintenance, and development of things that have not existed in the natural world and that satisfy some human desire or need. A television set does not grow on a tree. It is the creation of human ingenuity that first fulfilled a fantasy of a human need and then went on to change the very society that created it. I use the term “things” because one should include computer programs, organizational paradigms, and mathematical algorithms in addition to cars, radios, plastics, and bridges.

Science is the study of what is and engineering is the creation of can be. Only recently has engineering developed the set of characteristics that make it a legitimate academic discipline. Earlier, engineering often was viewed only as the application of natural science. Now, engineering has developed its own engineering science for the study of human made things to supplement natural science which was developed to study natural phenomena. Parts of computer science are wonderful examples of that. Engineering has its own philosophy and methodology and its own economics. It even has its own National Academy.

We differentiate science and engineering, not because their difference is great, but because, in many ways, it is small. Science could not progress without technology, and engineering certainly could not flourish without science and mathematics.

A more illuminating comparison might be between the humanities and engineering. One might find more similarity in style (not content) between English literature and engineering than between science and engineering. Both literature and engineering are the study of human created artifacts. Both teach creation in the form of creative writing and engineering design. Both teach analysis in the form of literary criticism and engineering analysis. Both are intimately connected with the needs and desires of individuals and society. A similar analogy could be made between art and engineering looking at studio art, art criticism, and art history.

Most scientists (but not all) feel there is some unique objective truth behind the physical phenomena they are studying. Their goal is to find it and describe and explain it, and this truth is unique although the approaches and approximations to it are certainly not. In literature and engineering, the designed entity is not unique to the situation, but it is a creation of the particular writer or designer and perhaps unique to the creator.

The distinctions of this section are not as clean or clear as have been presented here. The boundary between science and engineering can be and often is murky. Many items of study in science are influenced if not literally created by people. This is obviously true in biology and the life sciences but also true in physics where certain elements in the periodic table do not exist in nature. Perhaps, therefore, the areas of pure science are very limited. On the other hand, since people are members of our natural system, an argument can be made that their products are as natural as anything else and, therefore, the areas of pure scientific study are very broad. Clearly engineering is constrained in what it can create by the laws of science as everything is. Nevertheless, there is a difference in spirit in the two disciplines worth trying to delineate.

What is engineering? What is an engineer?? Although it is a very old activity or trade, engineering is a relatively young academic discipline or profession. Only in recent years has it reached a stage of maturity where some of its defining details and differentiating characteristics can be articulated. Engineering is the endeavor that creates, maintains, develops, and applies technology for societies’ needs and desires. Its origins go back to the very beginning of human civilization where tools were first created and developed. Indeed, a good case can be made for the defining of humans as those animals that create, develop, and understand the significance of technology.

Over time, the part of technology that acts as an extension of human capabilities became the purview of engineering. One can view bicycles, cars, and trains as extensions of walking and running. Airplanes are an extension and application of a bird’s ability to fly transferred to humans. The telegraph, telephone, radio, television, and the internet are extensions of talking, hearing, and seeing. The microscope, telescope, and medical x-ray are also extensions of human sight and vision. Writing, books, libraries and computer data-bases are extensions of human memory and the computer itself is an extension of the human’s brain in doing arithmetic and carrying out logical arguments and procedures. Indeed, looking around your environment in almost any setting, will illustrate just how pervasive technology is. In almost any home or office, there is very little that is truly “natural”; i.e., little that is not created or manipulated by technology. The food that you eat, the utensils that you eat with, the table that you eat off of, the house that you are in, the clothes that you wear, the book that you read, the television that you watch, the telephone that you communicate with, the car that you travel in — these are all technologies created by human cleverness to satisfy human needs. This process of creation is engineering and those who do the creating are practicing engineering, whether they call themselves engineers or not.

Not only is much of the inanimate world created by engineering, part of the living world is also. Almost all crops and agriculturally produced food stuff are “engineered” through selective breeding. The same is true of domestic animals such as pets and animals raised for food or sport. Certainly the dogs, cats, and cattle have not “naturally” evolved to their current state. They have been “created” or “designed” to satisfy human desires or needs. The slow and less exact methods of controlled breeding are being replaced by genetic engineering, tissue engineering, and applications of nanotechnology. We humans have the cleverness to do that. It is the development of the tools, theories, and methods and the understanding of the appropriate sciences and mathematics for that process that is engineering. It is a central part of the history of humanity.

Not only has engineering made our lives easier and longer, it has sometimes made them more terrible and shorter through improving our ability to kill and harm when we wage war. Indeed, military and defense needs have been a historic driver of technological advancement. One of the earliest categorizations of engineering was into military and civilian (or civil) engineering.

Because technology enables and causes change, it and its creators, the engineers, are viewed with mixed feelings. This is especially true in modern (perhaps post-modern) times when the negative side effects (“unintended consequences”) of technology must be addressed.

This note is an attempt to address the question of what engineering is and then that of what an engineer is. It is intended for the general public to better understand just what this thing that has such a profound effect on our individual and collective lives is. The note is intended for the student who is considering becoming an engineer and, therefore, it is for parents and high school and college counselors as well. It is for the university engineering student and professor and for the university administrator. It is for the state and federal governments who fund engineering education and research and the investor who invests in technology. It is for the husband, wife, parent, or child who wants to better understand their spouse, child, or parent. It is for everyone who accepts the argument that a human is a technological animal and that technology has a pervasive effect on our lives.

An important part of this note is the list of references. This collection of short essays is intended to open many topics and ideas, not develop them. A rather long list of references is given to allow the reader to pursue any of the many ideas further.

When deciding on a particular degree course, many students are unaware of the vast opportunities that lie in the broad area of engineering. This problem arises since most people are unable to define exactly what type of work an engineer performs.

The engineering profession is not well understood by the general public, even in the United Kingdom, who tend to associate an engineer with somebody who services their car or mends their washing machine! However, this type of work is rarely performed by graduate engineers. A professional engineer lives in a high-tech, fast moving world where the competition is fierce and the stakes are high.

With a degree in engineering, you are far more likely to be involved in the research, design and development of new products and services. Engineers have designed and created most of the world in which we now live. The subject is fairly creative and aims to solve everyday problems in a cost effective and practical manner. While many see engineering as a very technical subject, in reality many engineers will develop considerable management experience and the ability to communicate well and motivate individuals is an important skill.

The financial realities of studying for a degree cannot be ignored. Engineering is one of the few University subjects where companies are actively looking to sponsor students throughout their degree programme. If sponsored, the company will normally give you money during the university terms, and this can help to make life a bit easier!. Most companies will also offer paid work experience during the long summer holidays, and this is a very useful way of experiencing the type of work opportunities engineering has to offer. Sponsorship also offers the chance of a job offer after you graduate.

Job prospects for graduates with a degree in electrical and electronic engineering have never been so exciting. The huge growth in areas such as telecommunications has resulted in a large demand for suitably qualified students. In the past, many students have not realised how many opportunities lie in engineering, and this had led to companies finding it extremely difficult to attract people with the skills and experience they require. In general, engineering offers very rewarding work, as well as the potential for personal development, world-wide travel and good pay.

An Electrical and Electronic Engineering degree opens the door on many possible careers. Whether you want to be a manager or a technical expert, a sales person or a computer programmer, most electronics companies will need and value your skills. If at the end of your degree you decide that your future does not lie in engineering, then your degree can still be used to apply for a wide range of alternative employment opportunities.

In conclusion, a good degree in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from a university with strong research in growth areas such as telecommunications, as well as strong links to the industry, is an excellent and flexible foundation for future success.