Engineering School Grads - Tradesmen or Thinkers? 325
El Cubano asks: "ITworld is carrying a story (sorry, no printable version) saying that John Seely Brown (former chief scientist at Xerox and director of PARC, currently teaching at the University of Southern California) is encouraging engineering schools to change the way they educate. The article, quotes Mr. Brown saying the following: 'Training someone for a career makes no sense. At best, you can train someone for a career trajectory...'. What do you think? Should engineering schools be producing tradesmen (like an apprenticeship program) or should they be producing 'thinkers' (people who can cope with a wide variety of problem inside and outside their area of expertise)?"
Problem (Score:5, Informative)
From the employer side, competition these days is as bad as it ever was, particularly from overseas, and justifies the need to think short term (someone who can fill a particular position NOW, rather than someone who can fill it a little later but arguably might be a better long term investment for the company).
This is not putting down trade-type training, and to those thinking of being critical of my stance... Consider this: Would you want a high school graduate fresh out of school installing the electrical wiring in your house? Wouldn't you want a trade with some education doing it? Wouldn't you want a well educated doctor operating on you that has had an additional two years of specialty training in some obscure area rather than a GP? Would you rather have someone who is trained to think in terms of more basic principles and math rather than someone educated only on the latest technology and gizmos?
The answer is that it ultimately depends on need: if a tradesperson will do, don't hire an engineer! And if you need to look beyond the current technology but need some serious thinking, don't hire a tradeperson!
Duh!
Re:Trade schools (Score:4, Informative)
I think most of the top ten, twenty, or even thirty universities in the nation probably still teach academic computer science...
Example:
http://inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/classes-eecs.html#c
The CS9[A-Z] courses you see there are only worth one unit, not part of any required curricula, are self-paced, and are pass/no pass -- in other words, entirely optional and for the benefit of curious students.
The requirements for a degree in EECS at this university are CS61[ABC] and EE(CS)?(20|40). If you look at the upper division courses, you will see things like:
They don't seem like industry shills to me.
Re:Employers? (Score:3, Informative)
Let me offer a perspective as a practicing electrical engineer. This is a generalization, and not necessarily an accurate one. There's lots of applied math in higher levels of engineering (say, aerospace design), but down at the more applied levels it tapers off. I specialize in industrial control systems - primarily PLC systems. The closest I get to applied math on a daily basis is sizing a transformer, a fuse, a motor starter, a cable, etc. For that, all I need to know is the expected load in amps, add in some spare capacity if needed, and then pick the appropriate component off a selection chart. That's the easy part of my job. Much more of my work is done making sure that all the components are going to fit inside an appropriate enclosure, making sure there are enough terminal connections to land all the field wires, preparing the electrical schematics for the electrician to work from, programming the control system (this is a whole field in itself that does not share as many similarities to computer programming as one might think), supervising the installation and startup, etc.
And most of that I didn't learn in university. My university seemed geared to spitting out digital designers who would get sucked up by the likes of Nortel when I went through. We were taught nothing about the Canadian Electrical Code, nothing about the importance of grounding, nothing about industrial power distribution (I actually signed up for a class in this in fourth year only to have it cancelled due to lack of interest. It still boggles me that a class about power distribution got cancelled because would-be electrical engineers didn't sign up for it.) Even the industrial controls class I did take - which still didn't include ladder logic or preparing electrical drawings - had the bare minimum number of students.
It takes us a good year or more to train a fresh EE graduate to do this line of work. The near-total neglect that industrial controls is given by the universities is a constant refrain/curse amongst our engineers.
So I would say dial back on the applied math for undergraduate degrees. Give an EE graduate at least some exposure to items like the electrical code, intrinsic safety, drive controls, protective devices. They're things that any EE going into industry damn well needs to know, and any EE should at least have some familiarity with.
Re:Missed the point entirely (Score:2, Informative)
The term engineer is protected here in Canada... while spoken it can be used pretty loosely, I believe that there are restrictions as to who can put 'engineer' on their business card. 'Professional Engineer' implies a regulated professional. I have an engineering degree, but would not call myself a professional engineer, would not put engineer on a business card, and would not offer to perform 'engineering services' for somebody - I have not earned that designation.
Should an electrical engineer be able to wire a house? I would assume that it would be easy for an electrical engineer to figure this out, but why on earth would we waste time teaching electrical engineers how to do wiring?
I would select an electrician to wire my house. An engineer to write the Electrical Code that the electrician follows.
Certainly we need to train people who can think. I think hands on practical work is important - not necessarily to impart experience, but as a way to help students develop the ability to problem solve. We need to teach on a level of abstraction that provides an engineer with the ability to apply basic fundamental knowledge to a wide variety of situations.
Let technologists/technicians be technologists/technicians and engineers be engineers... please!
Ian
Lazy Companies (Score:3, Informative)
Years back companies used to create apprenticeships and train their employees, you would be taught your basic programming and work related theory through there. It was a company's job to train you not the university's because universities and Colleges are for different things. Already (in the UK) the value of a degree has fallen a BSC degree puts you at technician level of jobs, a BEng will make you and Engineer and a MEng is for a charted engineer.
If you want 'tradesmen' then create an apprenticeship in your company for that trade, Universities exist to tech thinking and to further knowledge. I'm sick and tired of companies who won't invest in their employees (or prospective employees) and demanding the state do the job for them.