The major problems facing engineering education

Engineering education has been much studied during the past fifty years. One of the first major studies, known as the Wickenden Report in its trial version recommended that engineering education be at the graduate level. However, this was later amended to say that engineering education should be an undergraduate study, but should be followed by an internship in which one's further education would be guided by the engineering colleges, industry, and the engineering societies working together. The dilemma of engineering education has been that we have tried to combine a broad general education with some engineering in a sort of liberal science education, instead of offering professional education with a very strong technological stem. Since we have chosen the former path, we find ourselves confronted by other unresolved questions. Should we teach science or engineering practice? How much emphasis should there be on design and how much on theory and analysis? How broad should the curriculum be and how much of the humanities should it contain? How much should we depend on graduate work to train an engineer? Now in addition to these dilemmas we find ourselves confronted with the problem of finding sufficient time to cover the material considered necessary. It is obvious that many of our constraints, schedules, credits, fifty-minute periods, lectures, laboratories, and lock-step methods must be replaced by new methods and systems designed to teach more efficiently. This offers an opportunity for cooperation among industry, the colleges, and the professional societies.