Page 170 - 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

THE GLOBAL ENGINEER 153

appreciate the impact of these changes on the social and economic land-
scape in the United States and elsewhere. The engineer of 2020 and
beyond will need skills to be globally competitive over the length of her
or his career.

ENGINEERING EDUCATION

History has shown that the “Great American Engineering College”
has been extremely conservative in terms of curricular issues. This in-
digenous and historical conservatism has been compounded by the over-
specification and over-prescription of educational requirements. How-
ever, revising the curriculum has become a heroic and very expensive
task. As a result, university curricula structures last for long periods of
time, sometimes more than 20 years.
When it comes to changes in the curriculum, we tend to focus on
the successes of the past rather than the challenges of the future. As The
Engineer of 2020 states, “we are teaching more and more about less and
less.” As our interest and awareness of global problems increases, our
teaching efforts are increasingly being perceived as pointless attempts to
teach everything about nothing.
Although the future is unpredictable, the skills required for engi-
neers to be successful are well known. And one thing is for sure—the
future will be global. Neither the United States nor any other developed
country will be able to ignore global issues. Addressing poverty and
health care delivery on a global scale and accepting social responsibility
will not be matters of philanthropy but of survival.

Current Challenges

Engineering schools today are facing a challenge they have never
faced before. They must prepare engineers for solving unknown prob-
lems and not for addressing assumed scenarios. Therefore, the emphasis
should be on teaching to learn rather than providing more knowledge.
Teaching engineers to think analytically will be more important than
helping them memorize algebra theorems. Teaching them to cope with
rapid progress will be more critical than teaching them all of the tech-
nology breakthroughs.
We have seen in the past 20 years that the amount of new knowl-
edge increases at a logarithmic rate in all technology and physical sci-

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