Page 73 - 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

56 EDUCATING THE ENGINEER OF 2020

use of a case-studies approach in undergraduate and graduate
curricula.

Approximately 40 percent of baccalaureate graduate engineers have
had some community college experience along the way. Community
colleges provide a vital pathway for an engineering education for lower
income students, from both majority and underrepresented groups. Fa-
cilitating articulation between two-year and four-year engineering pro-
grams is a critical factor in ensuring that the pool of potential engineer-
ing students from two-year institutions has a fair opportunity to
complete a four-year degree. Ironically, the greater flexibility provided
to four-year schools by the ABET Engineering Criteria 2000 makes the
dovetailing of curricula more difficult. Thus, we recommend that

10. Four-year engineering schools must accept it as their responsi-
bility to work with their local community colleges to ensure effective
articulation, as seamless as possible, with their two-year programs.

Graduate students from all over the world have flocked to the
United States for years to take advantage of the excellent graduate edu-
cation available. U.S. universities must recognize that there is rapidly
increasing competition for these international Ph.D. students that will
likely persist even if post-9/11 immigration challenges and restrictions
subside. They must posture themselves to compete for foreign graduate
students, who have typically represented half the “life blood” of engi-
neering departments. At the same time, however, they cannot afford to
neglect domestic students. Indeed, improvements in engineering educa-
tion that energize the undergraduate experience may encourage more
domestic students to pursue advanced degrees. Thus, we recommend
that

11. U.S. engineering schools must develop programs to encourage/
reward domestic engineering students to aspire to the M.S. and/or
Ph.D. degree.

To recruit the most highly qualified, best-prepared students from
the nation’s secondary school system, colleges, universities, and com-
munity colleges should play a prominent role in ensuring that all Ameri-
cans have the opportunity to pursue an engineering education, if they

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