Posts Tagged ‘time’

Engineering colleges must be more effective and visible partners within the broader university community. This partnership should be enhanced for non-classroom activities as well as for formal research and education. Engineering colleges, their faculty and students have much to offer the broader campus community. For example, engineers can provide the real-world context to show non-engineering students the applications of the mathematical and scientific concepts they are learning. Engineering educators and their colleagues in science can also provide leadership in helping their campuses initiate computer networking and make effective use of the information super highway. Industry can help foster this cross-campus interaction by bringing multifaceted problems to the university that require the talents of several disciplines to solve. Industry representatives who sit on university advisory boards should also stress this approach in their recommendations to the institution.

Conversely, engineering education programs have much to gain from other disciplines. New insights can be provided, for example, by chemistry in developing environmentally friendly technologies, by political science in teaching the value of issues advocacy, by art in designing new consumer products, by business in aiding the understanding of international trade issues, and by law in treating intellectual property rights. Both engineering students and faculty would benefit from such interdisciplinary collaboration.

Engineers working with other colleagues across the university can also promote technological literacy for all students. Engineering colleges should accept responsibility for providing technical literacy programs to liberal arts students. Activities can include developing and teaching courses that provide laboratory or design experience for non-engineers, examine the history of science and technology, or discuss the interaction of technology and society.

At the same time, student participation in university-wide activities, such as student government, professional societies, athletics, and performing arts can help them develop the leadership and communications skills that are an important part of an engineering education.

Engineering deans should actively encourage their faculty members to participate in research, educational and leadership activities beyond the engineering college. Industrial advisory board members should stress cross-campus interaction in their recommendations to the college. Activities should include connections with such units as the schools of business, medicine, arts, sciences, and education.

Engineering deans and faculty should actively encourage students to participate in university-wide activities. These activities can include participation in student government, student professional societies, athletics, performing arts, debate, study abroad, and similar activities. The aim is to promote leadership and communications skills as well as a sense of the integration of engineering into the broader world.

Engineering deans should take responsibility for helping non-engineering majors on their campuses better understand the importance and relevance of technology in their lives, and seek to better equip those students to prosper in an increasingly technological world. Engineering schools may develop specific courses, seminars, guest lectureships, and cross-campus projects.

Employment practices among major corporations are changing dramatically; few future engineers will experience lifelong employment with a single corporation or organization. Many may perform professional work as consultants or serve as contract employees on specific projects. To adapt to this new work environment, engineering graduates must understand that career-long learning is their own responsibility and must acquire the skills for self-learning. Although many engineering colleges offer continuing education, such programs are often degree-oriented and constrained by the academic-year cycle.

To be relevant to new graduates, as well as to practicing engineers at every stage of their careers, engineering colleges must re-think and repackage continuing education programs. They should focus their offerings on providing students with new capabilities, as well as degrees. Courses should take various forms ,with some targeted to business and financial management ,and be adaptable to the time constraints of working engineers. In this regard, it will be crucial that continuing education programs take full advantage of the evolving National Information Infrastructure (NII).

Industry should require and pay for engineering employees to take courses to sustain their technological and managerial competence, just as it pays to maintain its other assets.

Federal agencies that fund education should help universities and their industrial partners identify creative approaches to lifelong learning by funding pilot projects and experiments.

Engineering colleges should create innovative advanced degree programs, including practice-oriented degrees. Such degree programs might include course material on engineering systems; finance and accounting; and technology policy, management and decision-making. Courses should feature team-based activities and case studies. In some instances, engineering schools will develop such degree programs in collaboration with business schools and industry.

Engineering colleges, in collaboration with industry, should develop innovative ways of providing continuing education to practicing engineers by instituting non-degree, career-enhancing programs. This will be facilitated by new communications technologies.

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.

Indeed, a degree in electrical engineering can open many doors, in part because electrical engineering is so broad. Electrical engineers have taken on many tasks that you might expect people with other technical degrees to do. Semiconductor processing, for example, is highly populated by electrical engineers, but its basis is in physics and chemistry. Other areas include optics (as applied to communications), aerospace engineering, and even life sciences. “A lot of people don’t realize that a lot of biomedical devices are actually electrical devices,” noted Georgia Tech’s May.

Engineering jobs also cut across technical disciplines. More and more, mechanical, chemical, and biomedical engineers use electronics to measure a product’s performance. “Who says you’re not going to do test and measurement on a chemical process for drug manufacturing?” asked Looft. “That’s a huge area. And you better know a little bit about chemical processing when you go into that job.”

Some people with engineering degrees move out of engineering jobs but stay in their respective industries by moving into sales, marketing, and management (a few even become editors covering the industries from which they came). Others move into fields such as law and medicine. Law firms, looking for patent lawyers with technical backgrounds, may hire engineers or engineering graduates and pay for law school.

Those who choose to enter the engineering work force may find that they need skills beyond math, science, engineering basics, and problem solving. We asked the participants what additional skills employers now look for in engineering graduates. While we received some differing answers, everyone agreed that communications skills sit atop the list.

No longer is it enough to design circuits and get test results. You must communicate those results through written reports and presentations. Georgia Tech’s Williams noted that the university has integrated writing of technical documents into several courses, which UCSB’s Long echoed. WPI has even created an interdisciplinary major or double major in technical writing.

While schools have responded to employers looking for better communications skills, some in academia remain skeptical. One such person is Professor John Orr of WPI. “The standard example is if you hear an after dinner speech from the VP of company xyz, [he or she] will describe that employers need graduates with good communications skills, good teamwork skills, and some global experience. But when hiring managers come to campus, they look for skills such as experience with the latest Cadence software release. They’re looking for engineers who can be productive from day one.”

Regardless of whether communication courses are included, it’s becoming virtually impossible for schools to provide all of the required engineering skills at the undergraduate level. In fact, some people have begun to question if you should be able to enter the engineering work force with just a bachelor’s degree. Employers are looking more and more for graduates with master’s degrees, and the number of master’s degrees relative to bachelor’s degrees has risen in the past 30 years (Figure 1). (continued)

At the same time, the number of PhDs has remained relatively flat. During the last business downturn, companies may have scaled back their research budgets, relying on universities to do the work. “There’s a lot less research going on in industry than there used to be,” said UCSB’s Long. “Most companies have decimated their research labs.” Long argued that companies are looking for fewer PhDs than they did 10 or 15 years ago because they don’t have the facilities and don’t want to pay the higher salaries.

In recent years, industry has become more involved with academia. That’s good for the most part, as long as industry lets the teachers teach. Often, companies sponsor student projects or contribute to the funding of research labs. Students benefit from having worked on real-world projects and by making industry contacts, which can lead to employment upon graduation. Employers benefit because they can hire graduates with practical experience.

Overall, industry involvement in projects is welcome, because the companies provide equipment, materials, and sometimes funds for student projects. “If they’re paying for a project, then they should have the say over the project,” said WPI’s Looft. “But it can get too involved. I have companies that want to tell us what we’re going to do, educationally.”

Drexel’s Kam doesn’t agree. “I’m sure that there are horror stories here and there of companies who donated the equipment and wanted to control the curriculum,” he said. “But I wouldn’t call it a trend nor would I say this is widespread.” Georgia Tech’s May agreed that a few companies want too much involvement, but he doesn’t think it’s excessive. Companies are, after all, stakeholders in the graduates that these universities produce.

Looft said that companies go over the line when they say “you didn’t get it done” meaning that a student project didn’t produce a marketable product. When that occurs, he reminds companies that a student project is an educational endeavor that may not produce a working product.

Kam takes a different approach. He argued that companies need to get more involved in the educational process. “Industry is absent from the accreditation process,” he said. He wants to see greater participation from industry so universities can produce the engineers best qualified to keep companies competitive.

Whether you think the world has too many or too few electrical engineers, you’ll probably agree that engineers make an impact on people’s lives every day. Engineering has proven to be a satisfying career for many. Your work makes a difference in the world. Now, go out and tell someone how engineers contribute to society.

In early times, the practice of engineering was that of a trade or craft with training occurring through some form of apprenticeship. As it developed into a profession and more recently as an academic discipline, it took on the shape of other academic disciplines, with preparation being an education rather than a training. An important turning point in the Unites States was the land grant college act (Morrill act) of 1862 which established an institution for the teaching of agriculture and the mechanical arts (engineering) in each state. This officially legitimated engineering in higher education although it still had the form of training. Interestingly, this act came into being during the American Civil War and was signed by Abraham Lincoln.

World-War II was the second turning point when it was discovered that many of the technical innovations necessary for that effort came from scientists, mathematicians, and theoretically educated engineers rather than traditionally trained engineers. Most engineers prior to that time had been trained to develop and apply ideas already in existence, not to create new solutions to new problems. After WWII, the university curricula in engineering became much more scientific and mathematical. It took on more elements of an education rather than a training. It slowly became a real academic discipline in its own right rather than only an application of other disciplines. However, it retains the integrating role of applying the physical and life sciences using some of the tools of the social sciences, law, and policy and the values derived from the humanities, letters, arts, and business.

We are now going through a third transition in engineering in response to many factors in society and in technology itself. In the larger picture, society went through the agricultural phase, the industrial phase, and now the information phase. These three phases of civilization created and were created by the most powerful and applicable technologies of the time. Engineering is and will be the creative element in the information age as it has been in preceding ages.

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.

 I was recently in the Student Union at Boston University chatting with a couple of students about their majors and the school.  Most BU students seem to be nice, but these two were a bit snobby.  Bad seeds, I guess.  During the conversation, they mentioned that they were majoring “Nutrition”.  I raised my eyebrow at the time, but didn’t think too much about it.

It wasn’t until later that I realized what had struck me: Boston University is one of the most expensive schools in the country.  If you factor in room and board, it rings to the tune of $42,000 per year (2005/2006), or $170,000 total!  Boston is also an expensive city to live in, and many students take out substantially more in loans just to cover normal, nonacademic expenses.  Therefore, we can assume the total bill for four years to be in excess of $200,000.  Even if one pays cash, keep in mind that the cash growth rate is similar to the loan money if placed in an appropriate security.  A person taking out a loan owes a similar amount of money to the cash growth that’s been lost over time.

Now college students tend to be optimistic, which is a good thing, but occassionally there needs to be a dose of reality (aka ‘life’).

REALITY: Nutrionists earn somewhere between $35 and $53K per year.  Superficially, a student might think, “well, it will only take me 4 years to pay back that $200K loan as a nutritionist/dietitian”.  Unfortunately, there’s a few things he or she might be forgetting: Number 1 is taxes , which will walk away with about 25% of our nutritionists’ salaries almost right off the top.  The other things generally unaccounted for are:

2.  Living Costs (Food, housing, insurance, automotive). 
3.  Interest on the loan, in addition to the loan itself. 
4.  Job market and availability of employment.

Let’s continue to use our Nutritionists by assuming that our two friends have no problem finding a job, and immediately land an average salary of $39,000.  Let’s also suppose that they suddenly learn how to be frugal and keep costs down.  In Boston, their favorite city, they choose modest housing and utility expenses, which account for $1000 per month, or $12,000 per year (Boston housing can range anywhere from $1000-$3000/mo).  After Federal taxes for their tax bracket, our two nutritionists are left with only about $20K per year of profit.  “Yay!” they exclaim to each other, “We can pay off our $200,000 student loans in only 10 years!” Then they go out for dinner and subtract an extra $3K from their salary for food and other expenses.  Suppose they devote all 17K each year to paying off the loan — with interest (about 6.8%) it will take almost *25 YEARS* to pay off the loan.  The amount that the two nutritionists owe grows every year that it is not paid off, so that in 25 years, they pay almost $200,000 EXTRA just in interest. 

Lets be practical.  Nobody devotes 100% of their income and lives like a pauper to pay off a loan unless they owe it to the mafia or a loan shark.  When in possession of an extra $20K, most people find ways to spend it on marriage, a house, or other luxuries.

If you plan to major in Nutrition or some other mostly low-salary field, it may be reasonable to attend a small college or state school with a total cost of $40,000 (or if you have substantial scholarships), but certainly not one that costs $200,000.  You do not want the growth on the interest to exceed your salary.

It cannot possibly be stressed enough how important it is to choose a major with an aggregate earning power higher than the cost of tuition.  If you pay more for school than you can possibly earn, you are wasting money on some “play time” and you are saddling yourself and your family with a debt that will last for the rest of your lives.

Out on a dinner with some colleagues, the subject of a young woman came up and her school of choice, and someone mentioned, “She should be proud, Wellesley is a good school.” Immediately perplexed, I asked why he was so sure that Wellesley was a good school.  Avoiding the question, he shot back, “Well, what makes you think MIT is such a good school?”.  You see, this person is a male from MIT, and apart from MIT-Wellesley coregistration, it is impossible for him to know personally about the quality of education or preparedness of Wellesley. 

In your school search, you’ll hear similar statements all the time.  People who could not possibly have any personal experience with a school will adamantly assert that a school is ‘good’.  They may not have a well formed idea of why they think so, but they will passionately defend the validity of their belief.

When people state that when a school is “good”, they are usually not making a statement about the educational quality, but are making a different statement – in the same vein as one might make about a company.  Sony makes good products.  Adidas is a good company.  People do not have experience with all of the products of Sony or Adidas, but instead are making a statement about their brands.  “Sony is a good brand”.  While not a statement about education, that statement may still be important.  Companies and schools invest in their brand because it builds familiarity, recognition, and trust.  It is the brand that makes people comfortable enough to use the products, attend the school, or hire the graduate.  The brand mitigates the fear and risk of the unknown.  And schools that continually invest in their brand are increasing the value of the student’s diploma, even after graduation.

But the brand may only present opportunities initially, when starting a career or changing jobs — it is the quality of education that helps you to make the most of those opportunities and build credibility of your own.

StudentsReview takes the position that for a school to be good, both components (the reputation/brand AND the educational quality) must be fulfilled.  The brand opens doors for you that otherwise might not be available, and educational quality teaches you how to step through them.  The best education, the hidden gem, is the one that teaches you how to find and open doors yourself.

For prospective students, the branding is plainly visible.  It is up to you however, to do the due diligence and investigate the educational quality behind the brand for the institutions you might wish to attend.