Page 37 - Educating the Engineer of 2020: Adapting Engineering Education to the New Century

Educating the Engineer of 2020: Adapting Engineering Education to the New Century
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20 EDUCATING THE ENGINEER OF 2020

CONSIDER THE LINKAGES
The nature of engineering practice (e.g., the limited contact of most
engineers with the public), the credentials required of engineering prac-
titioners, and the structure and rigor of an engineering education vis-à-
vis other baccalaureate or professional education programs all play a
role in how the public perceives the status (or perceived status) of the
engineering profession and individual engineers. In thinking about
changes in engineering education, one should think about optimization
in a systems sense, to include, for example, how the changes can en-
hance the stature of the profession.
Science had its origins in the work of scholars supported by wealthy
patrons and in the personal work of wealthy aristocrats who looked to
the stars to understand the origins of the universe and life or who were
intrigued to understand the natural physical, chemical, or biological
world around them. Engineering had its origins in the trades, in the
effort to make and implement something useful, first for military pur-
poses and later for civil purposes. The artifacts created, deployed, and
repaired were made by craftsmen in military armories or tradesmen for
the public, and the knowledge to do so was passed from generation to
generation by an apprentice system. The forebears of the professional
engineering societies were guilds designed to support and preserve this
labor system. Although the artifacts produced, such as steam engines,
rapidly became more complex than the output of the simple trades and
required “engineers” to design and produce them, in some respects it
has never been possible to dispel the notion that an engineer is but a
highly trained tradesman. Indeed, today there are highly skilled techni-
cians that maintain boilers, sanitation systems, and so on, who are com-
monly referred to as engineers and have no need of the science and
mathematics education of the current engineering baccalaureate degree.
Formal engineering education eventually replaced the apprentice
system and, early on, was based on engineering practice. With the in-
creasing complexity of engineering problems, the basis of engineering
education shifted to the fundamentals of science and mathematics (in
the middle of the twentieth century in the United States). This led to
engineers who were more capable and flexible and more able to bring
better products to market more quickly, thereby immeasurably improv-
ing the standard of engineering practice. As time has progressed, how-
ever, a disconnect between engineers in practice and engineers in aca-

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