November 6, 1997

Engineering education sees some of the money

Everyone wants engineering students to cover more material but in the same amount of time!

Mention "improving engineering education," and you'll induce instant MEGO (my-eyes-glaze-over) syndrome in your audience. The topic has been discussed at countless industry forums, IEEE meetings, and academic conferences. Occasionally, these discussions even include the opinions of practicing engineers and project managers with varying amounts of experience. All have come to the same conclusion: Engineering education is inadequate for today's design challenges, and we must make changes.

So far, so good. Who can argue with that conclusion? The challenge is where to go from here. Some facts are clear: Technology is changing at an ever-increasing rate, time to market is getting shorter, and designers don't have all the skills and knowledge they need. Again, no controversy here.

However, universities, designers, and the engineering industry all have differing yet valid perspectives on what changes to make. These changes include more study of timeless fundamentals, such as transmission-line and thermal analysis; additional emphasis on debugging techniques; examination of hardware, software, and system-integration issues, because they now dominate over low-level circuit design; less academic research and more hands-on issues; and study of how to get a project from the prototype bench into production. (This last topic is especially resonant for me. When I was working as a design engineer in the ancient, early days of microprocessors, it took us nearly a year to get an "almost fully debugged" product into production. What company can accept that time frame now?) In short, everyone wants engineering students to cover more material, but in the same amount of time!

Some hope exists for a fresh approach, however, as opposed to just trimming, adjusting, and enhancing. Recently, the FW Olin Foundation (New York) pledged $200 million--significant money by any measure--to establish a new engineering school that will emphasize today's reality of developing products, concentrating on system and subsystem integration. The foundation said that modifying the curriculum in existing schools just won't work and that a fresh start is necessary. The new engineering school, which will open in 2001, will be adjacent to and collaborate closely with Babson College (Wellesley, MA), a respected, "hands-on," independent business school.

What do you think? How should we change engineering education? More timeless basics, or more focus on the build-debug-document-manufacture process? Or, is the real answer that schools should expand co-op and internship programs that expose students to the real world, concurrent with their classroom education? Given the constraints of time, cost, and so much to know, what trade-offs would you suggest?

EDN Access | Feedback | Table of Contents |