Page 172 - 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 155

CREATING GLOBAL ENGINEERS
We need engineering curricula that are not overly prescribed, that
focus on how to learn and how to apply what has been learned. We need
to focus on how to seek and find information. We need curricula that
satisfy a few fundamental teaching principles but allow for true varia-
tions. Requirements must be flexible to react to change. Future engi-
neers will need design skills, as well as analytical skills.
We must also open engineering curricula to non-engineers and
teach our students how to solve social problems and how to
commoditize technical innovations and processes to erase poverty. We
must recreate connections between engineering and the larger society
and focus on tools that will improve the quality of life. American engi-
neering schools are facing a great challenge, and we should be looking
forward to making it an opportunity for national and global leadership.

REFERENCE
NAE (National Academy of Engineering). 2004. The Engineer of 2020: Visions of Engineering
in the New Century. Washington, D.C.: The National Academies Press.

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