Page 164 - Educating the Engineer of 2020: Adapting Engineering Education to the New Century

Educating the Engineer of 2020: Adapting Engineering Education to the New Century
http://www.nap.edu/catalog/11338.html

CAPTURING THE IMAGINATION 147

have fallen back on old educational metaphors. To a certain extent, both
students and faculty are burdened by the tyranny of the assumption
that “courses” are the primary (and in many cases almost the sole)
mechanisms for student intellectual development.
As we move forward, we must boldly reformulate engineering edu-
cation. To put it bluntly, by sticking to existing models, we are losing
the battle for the imaginations of young people. Many of the best, most
creative, most idealistic, and most energetic young people do not see a
future for themselves in engineering that engages their passions. In-
stead, many see engineering education as a formulaic, boring, individu-
alistic endeavor driven largely by the acquisition of highly atomized,
esoteric technical skills. The connection in students’ minds between en-
gineering and the issues they care about is obscure. Even those who
recognize engineering as a venue for solving major problems facing hu-
manity often become discouraged in the early years by the seemingly
endless drudgery of courses that appear to be largely disconnected, not
only from their interests, but also from the broader picture of what
engineering could be, and should be, about.
Besides losing the battle for the imaginations of young people, we
are not addressing the rapidly changing nature of professional practice.
Considering the rapid pace of change and the internationalization of
technical labor, there simply will not be jobs for our students unless we
begin to think more creatively about the kinds of skills and personal
development they will need to be competitive.
I am arguing for a dramatic, fundamental transformation of the
educational process. Instead of an education based on courses, we should
focus on participation in multidisciplinary, multisectoral, multicultural,
even multinational teams addressing the grand challenges facing our
world. Let engineering capture the intellectual high ground of trans-
forming higher education across disciplines by challenging the funda-
mental structure of undergraduate education. In this reformulation, the
heart of the curriculum is participation—in interdisciplinary teams and
in substantive research projects. This new approach might be called a
“grand challenges curriculum.”
Examples of grand challenges could include: the development of
effective, low-cost wastewater treatment technologies to make clean wa-
ter accessible to more people around the world; new health care diag-
nostic technologies; the transformation of decaying urban infrastruc-
tures; and so on. Because the lines between science and technology are

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