Commercializing Curricula?

Help me out here...what is "undesirable" about commercial flavor in the curricula? It would be nice to know, when investing time, energy and money in a course of study, there might actually be a market for the developed skills...

The point of a bachelor's degree is not to get a job. It's purpose is to make students well rounded and knowledgeable in many areas of learning. Students are supposed to learn to think critically and to educate themselves. The solid foundation provided by the current curricula in math, sciences, engineering as well as liberal arts serves to produce graduates who are flexible, adaptable, and suited for employment in any number of areas, not just engineering. And certainly not just the sort of engineering required by some nearby industry or corporate benefactor.

If engineering education were to become tailored to suit a particular industry, just so students could get some job, it might as well be offering associate degrees, as that is the purpose of an associate's. Fifteen out of eighteen students in my welding school class got jobs at the shipyard, and that was why they were there in school.

I instead was there to get a college degree not a job. I then continued to earn a bachelor's and master's. Now I have a well paying job as a "mechanical engineer" at a national laboratory. How much of my engineering degree do I use? None. How often do I desire to refer to some text from my university days? Never. Personally, I think the only thing my master's does for me here is it justifies my salary. The general skills I developed during my undergraduate education, such as communication, research, critical thinking, etc, are far more important in the day to day execution of the duties of my job. I firmly believe that the editor/technical writer that was hired the same day as me, with a BA in English, could do my job equally well as the majority of difficulty here is with jargon.

In conclusion, I don't believe undergraduate curricula in engineering needs to be altered to make it more commercially marketable. Get down to the community college for that.

I agree with you an engineering degree is like passport to a job not nesserly a degree holder will have skills to handle the challanges on job this is my experience after obtaining a Diplomo in mechenical engineering i was on board ships and submarines after two years training hands on as well as Class room with indian navy and found that when i went on board Marchent ships lot of engineers were not Degree holders but Dock yard apprentices who had put up nessrey time at shop floors in dock yards and cleared MOT examination and were Chief engineers who had equal competency of a Engineering Degree holders who were chief engineers.its the mind set that only engineering degree holders alone will deliver the goods.I am sorry the spell check is not functioning request over look any spell errors

crm

I frankly don't see much of a negative side here. With the current state of "official" funding for education being what it is, any influx of funds is a positive. And just how much influence can there be, anyway?

Just a quick historical note: Before the industrial revolution in the US (Slater's Mills), there were what we now call the Ivy League Schools. As the industrial revolution spread, the need for people trained in the "practical" sciences grew. In those earlier days, the Ivy League schools in New England had not yet embraced disciplines like surgery in medicine, or mechanical arts. They did continue with mathematics and some other natural sciences- especially astronomy- where those disciplines helped the merchants in control of funding higher education. The need for engineering and science became great enough that eventually schools like MIT and the land grant "Agricultural and Mechanical" were funded. The point is that higher education curricula has historically been driven by practical needs.

That said, it is my belief that we should fund basic research- to understand more today than we did yesterday- but we need a large proportion of our curricula directed at what we need to do today and in the NEAR future to enable useful skills for jobs and a strong economy.

The program I now teach in was rewritten with input from a large semiconductor manufacturer. We put them on our advisory board and took several million in donations to get it running. They are no longer giving major input but many other members of the advisory board are. Students still go to work for anyone they want.

Everyone involved is better off because of the infusion of cash/products and ideas.

We have now branched out to solar manufacturing and are now offering several new courses that we could not have afforded if we had not had the previous infusion of support, cash and ideas.

Everyone is a winner in this process.