Is Engineering Education Steering Students Away from the Profession?

It could also be, that there is a shortage of the type of people who are able to do engineering.

It's not about the money, if you just care about money you'd be an accountant, it's rather a deep desire to understand how the world works (and to build things). My observation is that this quality isn't common.

I've seen the results where schools push more people to do "engineering". To get them all through they have to drop the standard and soon there's lot's more "engineers" without the apptitude or skills needed.

I see more and more USA students today who want the easy money but pursue non-engineering careers when they realize that engineering is a lot of hard work. An education system declining in math & science proficiency scores (the tools of engineering) makes it even harder and more discouraging.

Most engineers don't pursue engineering primarily for the money, they are drawn to it from their curiosity and desire to understand how the world works and to create.

The supply of engineers goes through cycles, but in the last 10+ years the trend has been a continuing decline. We need to take serious action to improve math & science proficiencies and have more encouraging programs & contests, so more potential engineers will have the tools and desire to pursue engineering careers.

If we fail, these jobs will be the next ones we outsource (or import) from countries who are seriously investing in and encouraging engineering careers for their promising students.

You can tell when a country is in trouble when the number of lawyers exceeds the number of engineers!

Yes, but..... My thoughts:

.....all decry shortage of trained engineers...... Yes. Decry; but is the shortage real?

.....fewer students are pursuing engineer degrees.....Yes

.....a world driven by personal financial success.......Yes

.... proven track record of strong compensation .......Well, maybe fresh out of college

.....high employment? ...................Not in down business cycles

So.....How can industry and academia collaborate to turn to tide? (in engineering education)

1. Industry CEO's need to get more respect for engineers. This is difficult for MBA's, bean counters and marketing types who have little idea what their engineers really do. It is also difficult for brilliant phD CEO's, common in high tech, who look down on engineers as a disposable commodity whose labor is free after the 8th hour of their workday.

2. It also means that the load of sub professional work that is so denigrating to working engineers needs to be transferred to lower skilled drafters, clerks and technicians. If this means that engineering managers spend more time managing a mix of skills and less time entertaining their superiors, so be it. The sons and daughters know full well what working engineer parents put up with. And these are the kids most predispositioned toward an engineering education.

3. And to the educators. Quit talking to just the CEO's unless it's about contributions of financial support to the school. Remember I said CEO's have little idea what their engineers do? Your goal is to train tomorrow's engineers, not tomorrow's CEO's or senior managers. Talk to the engineering managers and build your curriculum around what they need. But be careful. What they need may be kids with AS degrees and a bunch of CAD skills. That hardly justifies a quarter million dollars of student debt. I just don't know how you are going to tell that to your tenured professors whose technical specialties are no longer mainstream in commerce.

4. Again educators: While you are busy educating these engineering students think about training them to be engineering professionals and not something else. Don't expect their employers to do that. Companies purposely training their engineers for a professional career is an artifact of the 20th century when something besides the next quarterly report guided corporate strategies.

5. And to industry -- Get your people into the secondary schools and JC's where they can look like role models and representative of a "cool" company culture to impressionable teens. But remember that there has to be something honest and real behind this kind of effort. Today's kids are savvy and can see right through BS.

6. One last for the educators. People care little how special your school is. YOUR SERVICES ARE TOO EXPENSIVE!! You need a new business model. We have a whole new technology built on electronics. Learn how to use it. You need to focus on both the functions of educating students and talent sorting for the employers. Our young people want to qualify for work and the most talented want a chance to sell what they have for a good wage and future career. What they don't want is 20 years of indentured debt servitude and a lifetime searching for the right job.

Ed Weldon

.......................and to parents?...........

Very few parents care about engineering careers for their kids. (statistically speaking here) For the ones that do care here's the best I can offer:

1. Teach your kids to solve their own problems. Quietly watch to insure they don't seriously injure themselves or wreck something really valuable. Compliment the results when good. But don't overdo it. Success encourages; mistakes teach.

2. Provide them with the "stuff" that allows them to exercise their innate creativity. Building blocks and Lego are a good start. Never give them toy tools. Either the real thing or nothing.

3. Be ready to stop whatever "important thing" you are doing and help them over the rough spots. This rule does not apply when you are cooking dinner.

4. Accept the inevitable when they are simply not cut out for math and science. But never stop loving them.

One afterthought here -- try to establish a "culture" at home of making things rather than simply buying them. Kids are immitators. Parents are role models.

Ed Weldon

GA - Excellent advice. I agree that the culture & encouragement at home is the answer. It is pretty obvious I feel parents are the only solution to the education downhill we have been on for decades. Relying on teacher's unions and ideological, bureaucratic administrators will never be the answer.

Didn't mean to pressure you for an answer, but I felt you had the solution all along.

U NO WHO -- Thanks for the perfect segway to my thoughts on the slightly OT side of this question. All too often these days the family side of education issues is the 800 pound gorilla in the room. .....Ed Weldon

Ed - Sad but true. Parenting has evolved to where the concentration is on personal economics (two workers, single working moms, etc.) and the reliance on others (school teachers & administrators, coaches, etc.) to bring up and influence children.

Maybe the next generation will learn: it does not "take a village" (sorry Hillary), it takes a real parent!

U NO WHO -- Rome wasn't built in a day. If each year we can get a one or two percent increase in the number of parents that adopt some kind of kid focused "formula" in place of an extra few bucks in the monthly budget then that gorilla will lose weight real fast.......Ed Weldon

In the US the majority of the problem is at the High School level. When our children are young, all emphasis is put on sports. Whether we want to admit it or not, we consistently send the message to kids that being good at a sport is more important than Math & Science. We build fancy football stadiums and basketball ball courts but when was the last time you went to a science fair at a high school? In fact in most High School enviroments being into engineering would get you labeled as a geek/nurd rather than encouraged to pursue this as a career. When it becomes more important important to know the laws of physics than it is to make a Free Throw on a Friday night, more kids will steer towards engineering.

GA - Could not have said it better myself.

If only the problem were that simple...

I've judged a few years of a local high school science fair, and found it difficult to limit my comments to be very positive or encouraging, but I kept trying.

Locally, such projects used to be required, now they are optional...

The good news is that the (winners) from the various high schools would be sent on to be exhibited on the county fair grounds for three days.

The bad news is that they were only there, from 10 to 4, on tuesday, wednesday, and thursday, when parents and the general public would have to leave school and/or work to see them. How many people can afford to take a day off work to go see them?

The county fair ground floor space was too valuable to host a non-commercial (i.e.: non-money-making) event during any weekends...

You all have submitted laudable answers to the shortage of engineers. Hate to burst your bubble, but the answer is MONEY, much more of it. Is there a shortage of professional athletes? a shortage of CEOs? a shortage of specialist doctors? When engineers are compensated as they should be, the shortage will end and increased stature will follow just as it has in any other highly paid career endeavor.