Way forward for engineering degrees?
Way forward for engineering degrees?
(OP)
Olin college focusses on teamwork for its engienering students
Re-engineering Engineering
By JOHN SCHWARTZ
Published: September 30, 2007
In an era when software matters more than steel, Olin College wants to produce technologists with soul.
http://ww w.nytimes. com/2007/0 9/30/magaz ine/30OLIN -t.html?ex =134889120 0&en=6 c28466b3eb 78d2f& ei=5124&am p;partner= permalink& amp;exprod =permalink
or possibly
http://www .nytimes.c om/2007/09 /30/magazi ne/30OLIN- t.html?_r= 2&ref= magazine&a mp;oref=sl ogin&o ref=slogin
"the focus is on learning how to learn, than with a standard engineering curriculum. “How can you possibly provide everything they need in their knapsack of education to sustain them in their 40-year career?” "
Well that's a pretty hilarious soundbite, I can't remember being told how to design suspensions (or do Hamiltonians) at uni.
Anyway, it looks as though they may be ABET accredited, so, while they are all holding hands and emulating Mythbusters, which part of a normal engineering curriculum did they abandon?
Re-engineering Engineering
By JOHN SCHWARTZ
Published: September 30, 2007
In an era when software matters more than steel, Olin College wants to produce technologists with soul.
http://ww
or possibly
http://www
"the focus is on learning how to learn, than with a standard engineering curriculum. “How can you possibly provide everything they need in their knapsack of education to sustain them in their 40-year career?” "
Well that's a pretty hilarious soundbite, I can't remember being told how to design suspensions (or do Hamiltonians) at uni.
Anyway, it looks as though they may be ABET accredited, so, while they are all holding hands and emulating Mythbusters, which part of a normal engineering curriculum did they abandon?
Cheers
Greg Locock
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RE: Way forward for engineering degrees?
RE: Way forward for engineering degrees?
This is scary stuff. I keep thinking of several Sci Fi books from the '60s that portray a far distant future where no new machines have been created for hundreds of generations and the maintenance of existing machines has become a religion. I think Olin may be the first step down that road.
David
RE: Way forward for engineering degrees?
I agree that the most important thing is to learn how to learn.
But will it make you think less like an engineer?
RE: Way forward for engineering degrees?
RE: Way forward for engineering degrees?
RE: Way forward for engineering degrees?
Sounds like to me they're tring to make up for modern generation who have never experienced elector-sets, chemistry sets, tinker-toys, balsa airplanes, and Heathkits as pre-teens.
A better solution would be to require a minimum 1 semester internship working at a engineering company. The co-op programs currently in place at universities require almost as long-term a commitment as ROTC making them unsuitable for the college-plans of most students.
RE: Way forward for engineering degrees?
So what do we do, well we use models and I suspec that they'll have to do that too (or do without). And if that's true then they'll have to come up with some modelling rules and rules of scale but that requires math and pretty soon before you know it, we're right back where started.
Quite honestly, my old under grad school has a course of study called Engineering Management and it's filled with wanna be engineers whose primary purpose is to say 'I want this and I want it now and at no additioanl cost'.
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RE: Way forward for engineering degrees?
WHAT! I think they are picking on the wrong people. I think it was management who made the final say on what can go and not go on some of these unfortunate cases. Some times the people who make these decisions are not even engineers. They should focus on making the programs in the business colleges respect engineers and their data than the final cost of the project. It is company / business who strive for the low cost. In some companies they have a thing called Cost as an Independent Variable where instead of going for something with some margin, the lowest cost gets the final decision, and then when it blows up in our face, media blames the engineers instead of the mangers who went for cost and schedule than a safe robust design.
Give me a break!
Tobalcane
"If you avoid failure, you also avoid success."
RE: Way forward for engineering degrees?
I see it from a different perspective. I think the article/school is right - engineers don't push hard enough (even though they are right and can prove it). You say that schools should teach the business students? I disagree. It's not that they should be re-taught, it's that engineers should educate the managers, but standing firm.
Engineers shouldn't cave and let the managers have the final say. Engineers should take the lead and make the decisions.
At the end of the day, respect is earned, and it's up to engineers to demand the respect, not hope for it. I realize it's almost wishful thinking, but it's definitely something to strive for.
-
Aercoustics.com
RE: Way forward for engineering degrees?
I disagree, managers dont know how to respect us engineers because they dont understand what we do.
csd
RE: Way forward for engineering degrees?
From executive management point of view this is great, we can use the latest technology, its cheap (compare to militarizing it), and the schedule can move faster since it is manufactured by commercial companies. I would agree with this, if we fought our wars in a nice environmentally controlled lab with no dynamics going on, but we are not. Some of the requirements that we have to face up to are huge swings of temperature (-50 to 150 degF), shocks up to 50gs, random vibes that are outrages, humidity where your body temp is the dew point, … etc. I may be exaggerating, but this is the type of world we design too.
I have warned; I showed my analysis; I went into meetings to protest against using COTS stuff. All it takes is somebody to say it is cheaper and easily available to get management to sign up to the equipment. Flash forward six months later at a testing site, chips are popping off, condensation on the CCA’s, screws coming loose and falling onto live circuit boards, brackets snapping, and last but not least, found out that half of the electronics used 100% tin solder. We had to shut down the program for another six months to figure out how to “mitigate” the “situation”, ended up rebuilding the boards, chasses, connectors, to make long story short, we ended up re-design everything to military spec. At the end the product finally past and now it is in the field.
My point is management, especially non-engineering people, make the final decisions. Why do we have to correct our behavior when somebody else makes the final decisions? We know what is ethical and not ethical.
So let the engineers do what they do best. When the engineers send up a red flag, take it seriously and don’t try to find a cheap work around, because it will only nip you in the butt later.
Tobalcane
"If you avoid failure, you also avoid success."
RE: Way forward for engineering degrees?
While it may not happen as much in construction due to the need for PE stamp etc. In other industries it is possible for the Engineers position to be overridden by management, especially non technical management. Be it Bean Counters or whoever.
I once had to have a knock down drag out with a project leader from marketing (also a Chartered Engineer) who wanted to change the color of a product to make it cheaper. Trouble was the product was an aircraft store with low explosive content so the color has a meaning defined by international agreement. Any emergency personel, not just military, will use this color to help assess the situation if one is found where it shouldn't be.
As it was a safety concern I stuck to my guns and eventually got my way, senior management were eventually won over based on the safety impact.
Had it been something not directly safety critical, I probably would have been overridden and if I'd protested further may have faced the consequence.
KENAT, probably the least qualified checker you'll ever meet...
RE: Way forward for engineering degrees?
RE: Way forward for engineering degrees?
Are they training engineers or tinkerers? An engineer shouldn't be surprised WHEN it works...
RE: Way forward for engineering degrees?
Hg, still getting over hydraulic leap
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RE: Way forward for engineering degrees?
The old saying, there is no I in TEAM is politically correct, but do you think we'd ever gotten anywhere technology wise if everything was made by a committee. It takes an individule to say, there is a design flaw on the leevees, not a group of people all asking Who's gonna supply the labor and money, what's my budget and when must it be built, where does it go, and how will I get paid.
RE: Way forward for engineering degrees?
RE: Way forward for engineering degrees?
I really like the quote about the job doesnt give you a well defined problem set, its going to be badly defined. The other quote about focus on doing the thing right not doing the right thing.
I agree you cant be bold without doing your homework and basing this on sound judgement.
I think the approach is to deal with the real world and everything doesnt work out in the real world the same as paper and models.
Great provoking article.
RE: Way forward for engineering degrees?
You know, when I entered my first engineering firm back in 1978, my first problem was to analyze what had to be done for a new hold in a concrete shear wall. A what????
I had been in college for 6 years, including grad school, and there was never any mention of a shear wall, let alone the UBC of the time. That was pathetic from an education curriculum standpoint.
I cannot say that I fully agree with the quoted comment above, but, considering what I observed, maybe it is more true than not.
Mike McCann
McCann Engineering