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Educating the Engineer of 2020: Adapting Engineering Education to the New Century
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62 EDUCATING THE ENGINEER OF 2020
For the purposes of this paper, I use a traditional definition of a
cooperative education program adapted from the “The Cooperative Sys-
tem—a Manifesto,” an article by Clement Freund in the Journal of En-
gineering Education in October 1946.
A cooperative education program shall be one:
• in which curricula lead to the bachelor’s, master’s or doctoral
degree
• that requires or permits all or some students to alternate peri-
ods of attendance at college with periods of employment
in business/industry during a portion or all of one or more
curricula
• in which such employment is constituted as a regular, continu-
ing, and essential element in the educational process
• that requires such employment to be related to some phase of
the branch or field of study in which the student is engaged
• that expects such employment to be diverse so that students
have a wide range of experience
• that expects such employment to have work assignments with
increasing levels of responsibility on successive work terms
• that specifies as requirements for a degree a minimum number
of hours of employment and a minimum standard of perfor-
mance in such employment
SPECIFIC GOALS OF COOPERATIVE EDUCATION
Freund also detailed five specific aims of cooperative education that
are still embraced today:
1. To impart first-hand and actual knowledge of and experience
with the execution in industry/government of engineering de-
signs, business principles, projects, and developments in all ca-
reer fields.
2. To impart understanding of and familiarity with the problems
and viewpoints of working men and women.
3. To assist students, by direct and personal experience in indus-
try, in testing their aptitudes for their chosen careers.
4. To enable students to adjust to employment by a gradual tran-
sition from academic pursuits to the requirements and condi-
tions of the world of work.
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