Restructuring Engineering Education: Why, How and When? By C. Judson King

Abstract: 

There is strong interest in broadening engineering education, bringing in more liberal arts content as well as additional subjects such  as  economics,  business  and  law,  with  which  engineers  now  haveto  be  familiar.    There  are  also  cogent  arguments  for balancing against what is now the almost exclusively quantitative  nature of the curriculum, adding more elements that relate to the actual practice of engineering, and structuring engineering education so as to provide multiple and later entry points, which should enable more informed career choices and make engineering attractive to a more diverse range of the population.  Many have also sought a change in the level of the professional engineering degree from the bachelor‟s to the graduate level, which would  logically,  and  probably  also  necessarily,  accompany  these  changes.    However,  progress  towards  such  changes  in  the United  States  has  been  marginal,  in  large  part  because  incentives  on  the  micro-and  meso-scales  do  not  match  those  on  the macro-scale.    On  the  other  hand,  there  is  much  more  substantial  change  in  other  countries,  driven  in  part  by  the  Bologna process.  For the United States to be the last to change would be counter to the goal of retaininghigher-functioning engineering jobs in the U. S.  What needs to happen in order for the U. S. to change is evaluated.  

Author: 
C. Judson King
Publication date: 
October 1, 2011
Publication type: 
Research and Occasional Papers Series (ROPS)
Citation: 
King, J. C. (2011). RESTRUCTURING ENGINEERING EDUCATION: Why, How and When? UC Berkeley: Center for Studies in Higher Education.