Page 18 - 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

Executive Summary

This report is the result of an initiative of the National Academy of
Engineering that attempts to prepare for the future of engineering by
asking the question, “What will or should engineering education be like
today, or in the near future, to prepare the next generation of students
for effective engagement in the engineering profession in 2020?” It ac-
cepts as a given that, first and foremost, engineering education must
produce technically excellent and innovative graduates, but it does not
attempt to define a “core” curriculum, recognizing that individual insti-
tutions need to design their own. It asks, rather, how to enrich and
broaden engineering education so that those technically grounded
graduates will be better prepared to work in a constantly changing glo-
bal economy. It notes the importance of improving the recruitment and
retention of students, and making the learning experience more mean-
ingful to them. It discusses the value of considering changes in engi-
neering education in the broader context of enhancing the status of the
engineering profession and improving the public understanding of
engineering.
Although the report comments on education beyond the baccalau-
reate, its primary focus is undergraduate education, not the academic
engineering research enterprise. The success of academic engineering
research is undeniable. It helped shape this nation’s industrial capabili-
ties and it continues to do so in an increasing degree as more complex
products and systems based on advanced technologies are emerging in

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