Page 25 - 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

8 EDUCATING THE ENGINEER OF 2020

the changes with which engineering and engineering education will need
to contend leading up to 2020 and beyond.

CONTINUING CHALLENGES

The engineer of 2020 will need to learn much new technical infor-
mation and techniques and be conversant with and embrace a whole
realm of new technologies, but some old problems are not going to go
away. They will demand new attention and, perhaps, new technologies.
In some cases, their continuing neglect will move them from problems
to crises.
Although the United States has arguably had the best physical in-
frastructure in the developed world, the concern is that these infrastruc-
tures are in serious decline. Because it is of more recent vintage, the
nation’s information and telecommunications infrastructure has not suf-
fered nearly as much degradation, but vulnerabilities of the infrastruc-
ture (or infrastructures) due to accidental or intentional events are well
recognized and a serious concern. Natural resource and environmental
concerns will continue to frame our world’s challenges. For example, in
2020 the state of California will need the equivalent of 40 percent more
electrical capacity, 40 percent more gasoline, and 20 percent more natu-
ral gas energy than was needed in the year 2000 (CABTH, 2001). Forty-
eight countries containing a total of 2.8 billion people could face fresh-
water shortages by 2025 (Hinrichsen et al., 1997). The populations of
developed countries will “age” and engineering can be an agent for de-
veloping assistive technologies for aging citizens to help them maintain
healthy, productive lifestyles well beyond conventional retirement age.

SOCIAL CONTEXT OF ENGINEERING PRACTICE
The future is uncertain. However, one thing is clear: Engineering
will not operate in a vacuum separate from society in 2020, any more
than it does now. Both on a macroscale, where the world’s natural
resources will be stressed by population increases, and on a microscale,
where engineers need to understand how to work in teams to be effec-
tive, consideration of social issues is important to engineering.
By the year 2020, the world population will approach 8 billion
people, and much of that increase will be among groups that today are

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