|
Items in cart [1] |
Questions? Call 888-624-8373 |
PAPERBACK PDF BOOK Free Resources |
||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Copyright © 2009. National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved. Terms of Use and Privacy Statement |
Below are the first 10 and last 10 pages of uncorrected machine-read text (when available) of this chapter, followed by the top 30 algorithmically extracted key phrases from the chapter as a whole.
Intended to provide our own search engines and external engines with highly rich, chapter-representative searchable text on the opening pages of each chapter.
Because it is UNCORRECTED material, please consider the following text as a useful but insufficient proxy for the authoritative book pages.
Do not use for reproduction, copying, pasting, or reading; exclusively for search engines.
OCR for page 70
4
The Curriculum
There have been dramatic changes in engineering curricula in the
past 30 years. A review of this evolution clearly exposes persistent
tensions within engineering education.
A Record of Change
An examination of the textbooks in a given engineering discipline
over the past 30 years reveals changes striking in both nature and
extent. The trend is toward a deeper, more fundamental understanding
of the subject, combined with greater dependence on mathematical
analysis and modeling. In fact, the undergraduate textbooks of one
decade reflect some of the research papers and graduate texts of the
previous period. One concludes that a considerable body of knowledge
has flowed from the graduate to the undergraduate level.
Furthermore, a review of the engineering college catalogs over the
same 30-year period reveals the unmistakable trend of increasing sci-
ence and engineering science content with a compensatory decrease in
topics associated with engineering practice. Such catalogs also indicate
a trend toward greater curricular flexibility, which includes time
explicitly devoted to the humanities and social sciences. Like the text-
book evidence, catalogs are the printed summary of extensive and often
heated debates within engineering faculties. They also reflect the addi-
tional dimension of "outside" influences of accreditation bodies such
70
OCR for page 71
THE C URRIC AL UM
71
as the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology ABET and
of industrial trends.
The broad goals of undergraduate engineering education to prepare
students for practice, graduate study, and lifelong learning are the
underlying reasons for these curricular changes. With regard to the first
goal preparing students to contribute to contemporary professional
engineering assignments the curriculum is necessarily part of a
dynamic process. As professional engineering practice changes, the
educational base must change; the rate of change in most areas of
professional practice since World War II has caused curricular stress.
The second goal of undergraduate engineering education preparing
the student for graduate study imposes an additional curricular
dimension that is not always compatible with preparation for profes-
sional practice. The conflict appears not only in the approach and sul:-
stance of particular courses, but also in the time devoted to what
appears to lee an ever-l~roadening range of subjects. The third goal-
providing abase forlifelonglearning in support of evolving career ol~jec-
tives has a subtle and open-ended purpose. It attempts to address the
fact that, during the active career life of an engineer, he or she is apt to
take on increasing supervisory responsibilities, which often lead to
important management positions having a strong economic compo-
nent. Thus, the three-dimensional nature of the goals, together with
the dynamic interaction among them, shapes the undergraduate engi
. . .
neerlug currlcu .um.
Science Versus Engineering
The dramatic termination of World War II not only established that
technology was the determining factor in that conflict, but, of equal
importance, it resulted in recognition of the science-l~ased nature of
that technology. The role of fundamental science both in changing
traditional fields of engineering and in creating whole new technolo-
gies has been illustrated many times in subsequent decades. While the
underlying motivation for change is often economic or results from the
unending drive to improve the quality of life, the cycle of movement
from scientific understanding to pilot-state experimentation to initial
technological application to mature technologies is an unmistakable
feature of our technological age.
The curricular consequences of these postwar developments have
been major and have led to wrenching experiences in some disciplines.
For example, the first freshman-year courses eliminated or forced to
atrophy were the so-called shop practice courses. This change was
OCR for page 72
72
ENGINEERING UNDERGRADUATE EDUCATION
rapidly followed by a reduction in drafting. Although these courses
clearly provided motivation to the fledgling engineer and some knowl-
edge of what was then "current practice," the claim for more science
and mathematics was given higher priority. However, in recent years
these very topics have reemerged and have been transformed as a result
of the science-technology cycle cited above. Computer-aided design
{CAD and computer-aided manufacturing ~C~) now appear as well-
accepted topics in modern engineering curricula.
Curricular Compression
The expansion of graduate education in the 1950s and 1960s imposed
additional pressure on curricula as some of its topics were moved back
to the undergraduate years. Laboratory work was compressed and
Reemphasized. Over a period of time this reduction reached the point
where in some cases the residual laboratory experience was education-
ally marginal. While some immediately protested this trend, only
recently has the seriousness of letting laboratory work vanish from the
undergraduate curriculum been recognized. In a manner analogous to
the incorporation of CAD/CAM, the role of simulation is a topic of
current debate.
The need for additional science and engineering science had the fur-
ther effect of compressing and in many cases eliminating junior- and
senior-year design courses. In the traditional curriculum these courses
were the capstone of the educational program, because in them, all the
previous "fundamentals" joined with engineering practice to give the
student the experience of creating a practical device, system, or
process. The reduced emphasis on design created severe curricular ten-
sions, which ultimately led ABET to set a minimum required threshold
on design content. In addition, the professional societies insisted on
playing a more active role in accreditation, which required their repre-
sentation on ABET accreditation teams.
Presently a kind of moratorium stabilizes the balance between sci-
ence and engineering. While the partitioning of areas is not absolute,
the common view is that the balance among science, engineering,
design, and the nontechnological component cannot be changed fur-
ther without seriously damaging at least one of the four. Nevertheless,
pressures do exist for substantial change. For example, how will the
imperatives of computers and the information age find room in the
curriculum? Or how will time be found for incorporating the field of
biotechnology, which is growing within many engineering disciplines?
And how is the third goal of undergraduate engineering education to
OCR for page 73
THE CURRICUL AM
73
provide a base for lifelong learning in support of evolving career ol~jec-
tives to be addressed when engineers encounter several technological
revolutions during their careers and when they are further called upon
to bridge the gap from technology to society?
The Four-Year Constraint
In spite of the constant pressure to include additional subject matter,
the undergraduate curriculum has generally followed the standard 4-
year time period {although in practice the average engineering student
requires 4~/z years to complete the bachelor's-degree requirements). To
some, this constraint has not appeared to lie entirely rational, espe-
cially when one considers that in Western Europe at least 5 years are
devoted to what is considered in the United States to be college-level
material. However, others view the 4-year constraint as desirable,
because it forces the setting of curricular priorities. Furthermore,
industry has been outspoken in stating its desire to keep the first profes-
sional degree within the 4-year time period. This is partly because of
the diverse nature of industry's job demands, but a second consider-
ation is the perceived cost to industry if more years are required. In the
public sector, cost considerations are also a factor in the state legisla-
tures, as well as for families with students in independent institutions.
However, because of the obvious problems that result from trying to
fit more and more content into a fixed time period, there have been
attempts to lengthen the time to undergraduate degree to five years.
After World War II there was a serious, and for that time farsighted,
attempt to introduce a five-year undergraduate program. For example,
all engineering curricula at Cornell University were changed to a five-
year base, and five or six other schools moved in the same direction.
The five-year program did permit greater depth in individual areas of
specialization and added enrichment in nontechnical fields. However,
there was no concerted effort to adopt this approach, and industry
opposed the concept.
Simultaneous with this five-year experiment was the rapid develop-
ment of graduate education in engineering. Thus, an increasing num-
l~er of students did in fact continue for at least a fifth year, but the degree
awarded was at the master's level. One difficulty with the five-year
experiment was that when graduate students coming from other
schools were enrolled in the same upper-level courses as undergradu-
ates, the undergraduates were doing essentially the same work for une
. . .
qua . recognition.
Gradually one school after another discontinued the five-year pro
OCR for page 74
74
ENGINEERING UNDERGRADUATE EDUCATION
grams, so that by the early 1960s the experiment had come to an end. In
hindsight the five-year concept was far in advance of its time, but it did
not anticipate the rapid rise of graduate education in engineering. The
fact that the concept was not adopted lay the profession has tended to
. . . .
suppress its reconslc aeration in recent years.
Recent Proposals
Another approach to broadening undergraduate engineering educa-
tion has been the introduction of the so-called 3 + 2 curriculum. In
these programs the student takes an initial three years in a liberal arts
setting, studying enough physics, chemistry, mathematics, and per-
haps engineering science courses to be able to transfer to engineering
with minimum dislocation in time. The final two years are spent in an
engineering setting; the student usually receives two undergraduate
bachelor's degrees.
The 3 + 2 approach has never been widely adopted, and the number
of students in these programs has remained small. Such students repre-
sent an aberration in a liberal arts environment, and from the engineer-
ing side they have been more tolerated than encouraged. Neither liberal
arts nor engineering faculties have ever seriously addressed the purpose
of the 3 + 2 programs. While such programs are often described as
trying to strengthen the third goal of engineering education I providing a
base for lifelong learning in support of evolving career objectives, this
attribute has never been seriously addressed in the sense of a structured
3 + 2 curriculum.
Another approach to undergraduate engineering curricula has at
times been advocated by several groups within professional engineer-
ing societies. This approach divides the entire educational process into
preprofessional and professional components, resulting in a first engi-
neering degree after at least five and more probably six years. Advocates
of this approach claim that it is the only way to resolve the conflicts
inherent in the four-year program. The advantages of this type of
approach, according to advocates, are that the broad, nontechnical base
can be established in a coherent manner, and the in-depth technical
component can be added in an environment dedicated to professional
education. Although medicine and law have long experience with the
preprofessional model, engineering education has not adopted this
approach.
One might consider 3 + 2 programs as an experimental approach to
the preprofessional model. Conceptually, this line of reasoning intro-
duces a structured 3 + 2 program which, with sufficient curricular
OCR for page 75
THE C URRIC UL UM
75
integration, could address the goals of engineering education in a pur-
poseful and comprehensive fashion. However, neither the professional
societies nor liberal arts and engineering educators have approached
3 + 2 programs in this light.
In conclusion, over the past 30 years there have been major changes
in engineering curricula. The science and engineering science content
has increased appreciably, with a concomitant decrease in topics asso-
ciated with engineering practice. In addition, more time is devoted to
the humanities and social sciences, and there is greater curricular flexi-
bility. During this period undergraduate engineering education has
experimented with changing or modifying the four-year norm for the
B.S. degree. None of these experiments has succeeded in displacing the
traditional approach. The problems of the time to acquire the first
professional degree and the nature of that degree remain issues in engi
. .
neermg ec .ucatlon.
The Panel on Undergraduate Engineering Education recommends
that, to increase elasticity in enrollment capacities and diversity of
educational background of engineering enrollments, a pilot group of
colleges and engineering schools be funded to demonstrate effective
structures for dual-degree programs. Experience gained from this pilot
group could then be applied, if needed, to a widergroup of institutions.
In addition, the experience gained would be relevant to the often-
debated model of preprofessional followed byprofessional engineering
education.
Representative terms from entire chapter:
engineering curricula
