Complexity in systems engineering: issues for curriculum design

A key feature of systems engineering education is to teach students to deal with ith complexity. The variety of the field, however, requires choices with respect to the types of challenges, and the types and degrees of complexity students are being prepared for. This paper specifies a number of complexity indicators for four types of challenges a system engineer may have to be prepared for: systems complexity, methodological complexity, management complexity, and research complexity. The typology provides a basis and structure for identification and selection of educational goals (and comparison between different curricula), and prompts a number of issues with respect to educational forms and structure of a curriculum.