Re-Engineering Engineering Education for the Challenges of the 21st Century

JOM, Oct 2006 by Tryggvason, Gretar, Apelian, Diran

As engineeri ng education has changed in the past to adjust to the needs of society, the evolution must continue and change is needed to address the needs of the 21st century. With many approximations and generous error bars, we can summarize major trends in engineering education by the following classifications (for a more fine-grained classification see Reference 14):

19th Century and First Half of the 20th Century: The Professional Engineer

As engineering became a distinct profession, early engineering programs focused on providing their graduates with considerable hands-on training. However, the role of science and mathematical modeling slowly increased and gained acceptance.

Second Half of the 20th Century: The Scientific Engineer

By mid-century, technological progress, including the successful harnessing of nuclearenergy. as well as geopolitical realities as materialized by Sputnik, drove home the need for engineers to be wellversed in science and mathematics and the engineering curriculum adjusted to the changed needs. This structure has, to a large degree, continued until the present time, although design content increased slowly. In the early 1990s it was clear that more than science was needed anil many schools started to emphasize non-technical professional skills such as teamwork and communications.

The 21 st Century: The Entrepreneurial/ Enterprising Engineer

The rapid changes occurring in the world coupled with changes in engineering education starting to take place in the 1990s are likely to result in an extensive re-engineering of engineering education. While the new structure will, almost certainly, continue to be based on a solid preparation in mathematics and sciences, it is likely to emphasize the professional role of the engineer and then demand new qualilications suited for the new world order.

THE ENGINEER OF THE 21st CENTURY

We cannot, of course, say what the engineering profession will look like 100 years from now. The intense discussions that are currently taking place4-8 among leaders of the profession and educators suggest that innovation will be a central theme. The premise is that skill is a commodity and that routine engineering services will he available from low-cost providers that can anil will be located anywhere in the world. The engineering education therefore has to add value beyond just teaching skills. That skill is or will become a commodity does, of course, not mean that future engineers do not have to possess skills. Quite the contrary, they will have to be even more technically prolicienl than those making a living today practicing narrowly defined tasks. The engineers of the 21st century must constantly be able to gather information and decide on a course of action, including what tools are needed foragiven task. The technical skills, the people skills, and the innovation required of the future engineers can be summarized-with only modest exaggerations-as follows:

The entrepreneurial engineer of the 21 st century