Xref: utzoo sci.edu:1011 comp.org.ieee:363 Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!ephemeral.ai.toronto.edu!ai.toronto.edu!tjhorton Newsgroups: sci.edu,comp.org.ieee From: tjhorton@ai.toronto.edu ("Timothy J. Horton") Subject: Re: Engineering Education Message-ID: <90Jul29.232640edt.8337@ephemeral.ai.toronto.edu> Followup-To: misc.education Summary: there's substance to the `image problem' Keywords: engineering,education,Waterloo Organization: Department of Computer Science, University of Toronto References: <3374@dciem.dciem.dnd.ca> Date: 30 Jul 90 03:27:35 GMT Lines: 211 [speculating on problems/fixes for engineering education] mkg@dciem.dciem.dnd.ca (Mike Grasley) writes: > In spite of the fact that total enrollment in Canadian universities has > reached a new peak every year for the last four years, enrollment in > engineering (and science) has declined every year since 1986. My feeling > is that one of the prime reasons for this is an image problem. > Engineering simply doesn't have the appeal to young people that other > professions do. Some of this may be due to parental influence... > ...particularily harmful for females. [In summary, I think the image is not accurate, but is more right than wrong. What kid wants to go through university to be a technical lackey? People want more sway, security, and human success than engineering promises.] Might there be substance beneath the image? It seems people are not being drawning into engineering because of its image, but I ask, why is the image as it is? Is there no substance beneath the image? What is the *real* `image problem'? If we draw the chain of causality: reasons -> image -> low attraction 1 2 it is typically the case that connection 1 is ignored or treated in superficial terms connection 2 is dwelt upon the assumption being that the problem is fundamentally superficial. Connection #1 is usually attributed to the images of engineers in movies, the glamor associated with other professions, the accessibility of the concepts of other fields to the common person's experience. Analysts feel that this is *wrong* or inaccurate, and so they neglect to look for what is right about the image. Well, the image has a number of things perfectly right. Compare doctors and lawyers with engineers. - The typical engineer works for a big organization, an IBM or a department of defence or utility or other large organization. The field is not characterized by individual entrepreneurialism and success, nor does the training usually even touch on business skills. - Technical success, rather than human success, forms the entire engineering training, and the destiny of most engineers in industry. - The goals of an engineering career are not things people are naturally interested in. (During the industrialization period, it used to be that that engineering was the means to the goal of a better world. What is it now? The path to faster workstations. Who cares?) - The north american engineer is trained taken through a rigid core, at a fixed pace. Europeans, coming to north america, often conclude that university here is a lot like highschool. Self-learning and self-motivation is not the nature of our engineering schooling. - etc... One of the consequences of the north american method of education is that employers look hard at your precise experience with very specific technology, and look to MBA's and non-techies for management positions. In contrast, in Europe, an engineering degree is looked upon as the appropriate training for management in a technical company. (Doctors and lawyers, at least, usually require another university degree with a certain amount of breadth, and so are much prepared for diversity and self-determination and success.) Anyways, who wants to be a deadwood technical lackey for a big company, or suffer through 4 years to design according to somebody else's decree with little chance of rising to the level of decision-making and relevance? My latest personal pocket theory, gleened from only a few instances, is that the truly entrepreneurial individuals with a technical leaning are really put off by the education process. Every person that I know of who has started his own company has either not completed a technical degree, or hated nearly every minute of it and refers back to the experience with considerable contempt. I think this is a pretty important observation, even if it is just 60% true in general. >The following is from an article in the Iron Warrior (the Waterloo engineering >newspaper) by Katherine Koszarny, VP of the student engineering society. [A favorite publication of mine] > "Traditionally, engineering issues do not make the news. Media news is designed for one thing: to deliver people whatever they feel is important to them. It was recently said that people read the news to be assured that their world is as it should be. Ergo the focus on local issues (which I hate). Who cares about the next generation of SPARC stations? What does it mean to my mom? > Every day, we hear about politicians, important officials > and backbenchers alike. Business sections [of newspapers] > magazines and best-selling books highlight various entrepreneurs > and executives, along with their achievements and ideas. Politicians make decisions about our health, our schools, our money, our laws, our defence, our environment, our futures. Business news represents our investments, our opportunities, our jobs, our futures... How many times does my mom want to see articles about new lab equiment, yet another parallel processor, cooling technology, or telephone switches? Even if anybody manages to care, it's entirely up to the business and political communities (***NOTIBLY DEVOID*** of engineers) to decide when and what any of it matters. >Parents encourage their children to be lawyers, doctors, dentists and >accountants. Engineering isn't regarded in the same manner." Engineers aren't paid in the same manner, nor have the same opportunities. Most of us work like sheep for somebody else. >What people fail to realise is how dependent society is on engineers. The nature of the dependance is much more strongly tilted in the other direction, because engineers are not trained to control. Rather most are lackeys for others. Without control, we are not important, not valuable. It is usually the case that the more you cost and less you give for it, the more people love and respect and value you. I've learned this from work, my own and others (i.e. the more somebody pays you, the more they love you and listen to you and respect what you say). My sister is a negotiator for our the Ontario government, and it is sad to hear the obvious contrasts between the ways the engineers negotiate and the way the lawyers and doctors do it. The engineers just don't have the wherewithall. >Without engineers there would be no cars, no radios, no airplanes, no >bridges, no electricity, no ... You get the point. Modern society is >propped up by and very dependent on a highly technological infrastructure. >This may or may not be good, but it is a fact. It remains that we do not and cannot stand up and be counted. We are not trained to do so, nor are the people who tolerate the years of narrow, rigid, technical education typically inclined to do so. >Engineers are needed to maintain, improve, and expand this infrastructure. As it stands, an engineer is just a unit cost of $45K/person/year, and needs to be managed. We are `needed' the same way we farmers are needed. To serve. >Various environmental groups point out the amount of damage we have done to >the earth in the name of technological progress. If we are going to stop >destroying the earth, environmentally friendly technologies (i.e. better >exhaust systems, alternatives to hydro-electric mega-projects) must be >developed. Who is best able to provide these developments? Engineers. If such an effort is ever tailored and led by engineers (at least in North America) I'll eat my shorts! ... >So the other alternative is increased enrollment in engineering programs >at universities. This is a two step process. First we must create a >positive public image. Unless you expect to have other than a superficial effect, you are going to have to reshape the underlying causes for the image. People may be open to superficial manipulation, but is there ever going to be enough money for the ad campaigns to fool us all for very long? >Secondly, we must encourage young people to get a solid education in science >and technology. They must be encouraged from a young age. `Eat your brocolli, it's good for you.' >Engineering is more than just a science. It is the art of taking science and >applying it to reality. Engineers must have a solid background in the maths >and sciences, but they must also be creative. This is success with things? Well, without success with people, so many things are just so many things. Without management/planning/business/marketing skills, what value is there in this? >Engineering is a challenging and rewarding career; >we just need to convince the general public of this. >The Faculty of Engineering at the University of Waterloo is planning to do >just that. A proposal is being put together that would see engineering >students on their work semesters speak to local elementary/high school >students about engineering--the fascinating work, the varied career >possibilities, the rewards, etc. The idea is that young people relate best >to young people, so the message is best heard from engineering students. >And with students working all over the country, we will have a national >audience. Good luck! (But as an engineering alumni of Waterloo, I hope you don't come asking me for money to do it). I expect you might have some short-term effect, specifically to the benefit of the profile of UofWaterloo Engineering. But I do not think that an hour on some bleak morning, back in my highschool days, would have persuaded me to become an engineering lackey. If I had wanted social position, relevance, sway, and security, I would have become a lawyer or a doctor, and 10000 co-op students from Waterloo, screaming for an entire year of bleak mornings, wouldn't have changed that. There is a new desire for social security and position, a new conservatism in our youth. These are kids brought up in an uncertainty of recessions lost confidence. These are not the kids of the 60's, who came out of 30 years of continuous improvement and ever-rising expectations and security and employment and all doing better than their parents, etc. These new kids want to assure their place in the social order, not follow pathes of excitement and intellectual exploration. >The program is still in the planning stages. Any comments as to who our >target audience should be, what we should be telling them, etc. would be >appreciated. (Try to project an image of ubiquitous professional self-control and opportunity. Lie through your teeth. :-) >The benefits of this initiative are years away. But we must look at the >future as well as our short term needs. If you are proud of being an >engineer, go back to your high school. I am happy to be an engineer, but the typical engineering education is not something to sing about, and it just doesn't have to offer what other fields (and other countries) have to offer. It's not much, by itself. With the right other things, I think it has a *lot* going for it. >Encourage students to follow a career in engineering. Why? In the personal, selfish terms by which we all approach university?