Facelift for Engineering Education?

Duderstadt argued in a recent lecture that more education in the humanities and social sciences is necessary .

Jeez...I'd argue that these are the very things that have led to a reduction in the numbers of engineers.

What next? 'I'll teach you assembler programing by teaching you Proust...?'

I just looked at the site...and spotted this

Curriculum: Interdisciplinary, project-based approach emphasizing entrepreneurship, liberal arts, and rigorous science and engineering fundamentals

Dunno what liberal arts are???
I'm a great believer in art and engineering going hand in hand because of the common need for creativity.

Maybe I need to hear their definition of social sciences...but to me it's a misnomer, like political science, economic science and all the other hocus pocus that tries to pass itself off as science.

Del

Del, Heres what I think the point is:

up until recently, the engineers huddled together in their silos and did engineering stuff using engineering ways of doing stuff (REAL MATH< REAL SCIENCE) and everybody else just nodded and said, OK, do that and we'll make money. Because they lacked the skills, education and mental habits to understand.

And the liberal arts folks chatted up in their salons and wrung there hands at what those engineers are doing to ________.

Result: No communications / poor communications and no consideration of consequences. Consequences haven't always been good, so the herd now blames the engineers,

"If only they understood the plight of _____ they wouldn't invent ____ that would Do ____ but still leave ____ as consequences..." Perhaps if they read _____ like we do, they wouldn't create such horrible _____ and the world would be safer for ______."

What Duderstadt is proposing is not to actually have the rest of society meet us half way (like learn to do algebra and understatnd critical thinking concepts); No, He is proposing that we meet society half way by wasting our precious time learning the subjective crap that they find "fascinating." So that somehow we will anticipate, and eliminate the "liberal anguish " whichwill result whenever we do something that acheives its intended purpose; This is unlikely, because Liberal Anguish is a result of their need for a solution which has absolutely no other consequences or impacts, something that is not taught, apparently, in their classes.

His proposal is about integration, cross pollination, and breaking silos- but unfortunately, not for the better.

The problem with this is that giving engineers humanities doesn't do a flippin thing for the comprehension of all the non-engineers in technical areas; so instead of elevating the herd, it just lowers the level of the engineers.

And then the liberal arts majors will feel better about themselves.

Hope this helps.

milo

Thanks for the explanation Milo, excellent post...
I shall try and squeeze 'Liberal Studies' into my busy schedule alongside
'Accountancy for Engineers'
'Masters in Business Administration' and
'Basic Bullshitting and Marketing'
'Office Politics and Brown-nosing'

I realise my education is far from complete .

Del

We'll take an excellent post from the "Slaps head with furry paw" meister.

What thread was that one in- dell, it was a classic about how NOT to talk to engineers. Something about a pump to add magick treatment chemical to a lake? You asked whether it was a ml per day or a 100 liters per hour or something like that. Perfect example of what we're discussing.

milo

"Feel good" engineering. What a concept, I feel like inventing this, cause it will feel good to make others feel good. I see you point. I must agree, don't bring us down so you can understand what we are doing . Come up to our level and take a look around.

Yea, Olin does have some 'touchy feeley' requirements. What I got out of talking with them is they are generating non-stereotypical engineers. Ones with people skills. Like the ones I did not get in college.

One kid was a sculptor on the side while in high school, and she wanted to keep on doing that 'on the side'. So Olin set aside a studio for her. She got some of her 'liberal arts' credit by doing what she loved. ... Is that engineering? No, but it is creative.

Olin has a 'directorless orchastra', that sounds pretty good. Students AND faculty are involved. They perform for school events, but it is mainly to decompress faculty and students. Yes, that is part of their 'liberal arts' emphasis.

There are plenty of geeky things that go on there too. And being a small school ALL the students and faculty know everyone else. If someone wants to be a loaner, they just don't fit in there. They turn down 4.0+ applicants for the good well rounded 3.5+ ones. What formula they use, I don't know, but it seems to work.

Olin isn't for every one, but neither is anywhere else.

BTW, Olin doesn't offer tenure. And several tenured profs have left their comfey positions to go work at this undergraduate only school. That goes in the face of reason in a lot of ways, but that is part of why Olin is its own grand experiment.

It is to be expected that a long haired yankee hippey liberal commie pinko fag would espouse such garbage. Only a fool would think that sitting around smoking weed and discussing Plato is the way to produse quality engineers. In truth, just the opposite is needed. More Math, More Science, more work in the disciplines, No junk. In todays world we can not afford engineers that can't perform even basic design.

I believe that integrity and ethics should be stressed upon more, but not watering down with "liberal arts" what is liberal arts any way?

I that a form of a unclassified student?

I guess we will all have to face it that engineering is never going to be a glamorous as being a rock star. Perhaps we could talk DIY t.v. show to have the "next big engineering star competition". I hope most of you can agree that It is a calling to be a great trouble shooter or engineer.Most any one can be "trained" to be in engineering but only a few have a passion for finding solutions and options. I am not sure where the liberal arts fall in line with engineering, esthetic's should be up to the sales people. I think for both electrical and mechanical you will need math and some math and some complex math and throw in some wrench time for theses kids coming out of school now who can't use a volt meter and are designing your systems for you.

How about a bit of technical writing too just so the people can read a users manual.

Can you tell this is happened to me?

I guess we will all have to face it that engineering is never going to be a glamorous as being a rock star.

Hold on a second, have you ever heard of the band members in "Boston".

I must yield to your wisdom. I have forgotten that anything that came from them fell out of the Great Brad Delp. The Boston sound would not have been anything with out him.

a revolution? I think something more of a renaissance is what is needed. i graduated with my undergrad degree 5 years ago and more liberal arts in the current system is not what is needed. Almost without exception the classes the engineers couldn't stand were the already overly empahsized "liberal arts" classes that have been made a requirement for being a well rounded person. Except these classes are not classes about art, culture or creativity. They are classes in which you are expected to read what is in a book and regurgitate what the author or prof thinks about the subject. I took a European History Course, it was to cover 20th Century Europe. We spent (4) 75 min lectures on the impact of the Marxism on Russian Art but went through the Holocaust and WWII in less than 45 mins. I am fine with broadening my base knowledge, particularly non-engineering studies, I have been doing it since college. Much of it to undo the b.s. I was fed in college. But instead of having classes preaching socialist ideals about how it is our responsibility to take care of our fellow man and why our government is always just and right maybe we should be taking business classes so that as engineers we have a better economic/business background. No matter what the degree is in, people should be taught in a manner that promotes creativity, critical thinking and rewards success, but college much like our public school system thinks the solution is to program us to think a certain way. History for example is an outstanding subject to study when studied from all angles, but when only looked at from a narrow perspective it can be mildly or grossly manipulated.

What is going on in education is horrendous, back in the day, people who were sure the Earth was flat were skeptical adn flat out denied that there was any possibility that the Earth was round. They were proven wrong by people who had drive and perspective to challenge the accepted norm adn find proof, ie facts. What we are doing today is the equivalent of convincing (brainwashing) the people who know the world is round into believing it is flat. If you tell a big enough lie and do it often enough eventually it will be accepted as truth.

John Schlitt, former lead singer for hard rock outfits, Head East and Petra, and solo artist, multi-Grammy award winner. Education BSc Civil Engineering. He has quite a phenomenal voice. Check it out at http://www.johnschlitt.net/fans/video3.htm. Thats as far as I can go in appreciating the arts.

My son graduated from Olin this Spring, so I am not un-bias.

Olin starts out choosing 'high quality' candidates, then has face to face, on campus interviews to make sure these folks are not stereotypical engineers. Loaners, geeks, social outcast, as society has labeled engineers at least since the 1950's. They look for kids with people skills, mostly ADD (not necessarily ADHD - this is my observation). They teach by giving a problem first, then as questions arize support it with the theory.

They get all the normal engineering studies done, just not in the order/way we have been used to for the past many years.

The best thing I can say is Olin teaches the way my son has learned to think. Not all rules and history, but by making a fantastic tapistry of technology, people, history, economics.

Not every school can or should be an Olin. But as one VP from HP indicated, schools like Olin will bring the next generation of technology leaders.

Olin, like all engineering schools, teaches a lot of facts, but more importantly, it teaches a way of thinking that allows for success in any endeavor, whether it is in art, science, technology, medicine. This kind of person will succeed and we will all be better off for it.

Sorry for the soap box, but this is obviously important to me.

You know where this is going, don't you? There'll be a course called Conceptual Fluid Dynamics requiring only 4th grade arithmetic. But here's my offer: I agree to read twenty great books (including Proust if you want, though I thought Julia was a great singer) and the liberal arts guys agree to learn what entropy is.

Now, I do agree everybody needs the basics of literature, art, history, and so on. That's what libraries and museums are for. Put down your video games, get off your lazy butts and go to the Guggenheim! Or, if you don't like that, go to the Sydney Opera. Or the British Museum.