Page 173 - 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 Importance of Economics

G. Bennett Stewart, III
Stern Stewart & Co.

Given my slim curriculum vitae and engineering credentials, I
agreed to speak only on the condition that Princeton Professor John
Mulvey not revoke my engineering degree. This is the first lesson of risk
management, of which Mulvey is a world expert. I should explain that I
entered Princeton’s engineering program in 1970 because my father was
an engineer, I was good at math and science, and I enjoyed solving
problems. But like many, many others, I didn’t know what to expect,
and by the end of my freshman year, in 1971, I didn’t know which of
the five departments to choose. A fellow engineer and roommate, Larry
McKeithan, helped. “Bennett,” he said, “it’s electrical engineering.
Computers are the wave of the future.” That was enough to convince
me. At the end of my junior year, when I was once again approaching a
fork in the road, I consulted my consigliere Larry again. “Business
school,” he advised. “What’s that?” I asked. “I’m not sure,” he said, “but
it gets you a job at the end.”
With the next stage of my education carefully plotted, off I went to
the University of Chicago, which at the time was an engineer’s delight.
Finance was taught like a branch of physics—mathematical models and
empirical research into stock market and accounting data, and, in my
humble opinion, the world’s best economics department. I lapped it up,
while, to my satisfaction, undergraduate liberal arts majors struggled
mightily.
The Chicago business education is now decidedly different than it

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