Creating well-rounded and whole-brain engineers

We explore the concept of a "well-rounded" and "whole-brain" engineer. A well-rounded engineer has attained a breadth of competencies that allow creation and communication of both highly analytical and highly conceptual concepts. A whole-brain engineer would be an individual that is adept at "being creative" while also being expert at the very structured analytical processes required of engineers. We associate this expertise with the concept of elegant design. We note that individual engineers can perform adequately in the engineering domain without much creativity at all, resulting in fully adequate designs. This does not mean they lack creativity, but may just not associate it with the tasks at hand. An elegant design has been described as the result of a creative process that results in a new way to address known problems that is more effective or aesthetically pleasing. We contend that accomplishment of tasks in a creative way can be improved with training and can lead to more elegance. Creativity in engineering and design is likely a balance of individual competencies that span multiple ways to think about problems, cognitive processes that enable or constrain creativity in individuals, and individually focused practices that encourage or constrain creative thought. Training a good balance would encourage individual engineers and designers address problems using multiple competency sets that encourage both emotional and cognitive reasoning on solutions. Training a good balance would also practice alteration of the executive function of individual cognitive practices over time periods between deliberate and spontaneous modes, allowing creative thoughts to arise that may have been suppressed while heavily on-task. We link together three exploratory frameworks that might improve individual creativity in design. This is discussed conceptually at this point, with plans to create an environment for exploring this training more fully in an engineering design program.