@ck

The problem is, engineering *should* be a trade school. There is barely enough time in 4 years to learn your trade well enough to be a functioning engineer as it is. Water it down with general education, remedial courses for people who had bad HS, etc. and you're now producing engineers who simply can't compete in the global work force.

@abge - The real improvement would be to offer focused education (ala the trade school) and get companies to realize a focused AS has as much or more skill in the field than many BS grads. I have an AS in Computer Science/Computer Programming. Luckily, when I got it, software development was still soemthing new and businesses were desperate and took anyone with demonstratable skills regardless of education. But now, despite 30 years in the field, I can't get a place like P&G to look at my resume. I'm in my late 40s and looking to go back and get a bachelors just because of idiot companies like this. And it is getting worse all the time.

How many years is an AS?

Here's the thing: to be competent in my field, I was 2 courses away from a major in math and 2 courses away from a minor in physics. That's on top of my engineering degree. The amount of background you need to know in a lot of engineering fields is staggering.

""Second, while the benefits of poetry, literature, etc are not as immediately apparent as doctors and engineers, I do believe they are important in a high functioning society. The problem is, the needs of liberal arts students are so vastly different than STEMM, that it's hard to accommodate both in the same higher education system.""

Yes, absolutely. I think maybe the solution is to get the University and College division to be more absolute? It's a sticky problem.

Reloading before I sent that, I see you address it. I think maybe the solution is, as I say above, to make the divisions of Colleges within a University system be more significant. This will require significant cultural and practical changes (here's one very simple one: saying a person went to the University of State will have to be amended to the College of Whatever at the University of State), but there's no reason that a University's College of Engineering can't be an entirely different experience than being enrolled in the College of Liberal Arts. It would mean drastically cutting the course requirements for University enrollees, but that should be done anyway.

I'd hesitate to cut science-y and liberal arts-y education entirely apart (although engineering trade schools might be necessary, I'm not as familiar with the field). For financial reason the associate's degree Draug references is going to be the best choice for a lot of people, but there's much to be gained in both immediate and long-term effects from encouraging engineers to read literature and write clearly or teaching poets and lawyers to also understand basic scientific concepts. However, given that it's difficult to impart such skills even in four years of study, perhaps the most realistic approach would be to give students a foundation in these concepts (a semester or two's worth at most). Lots of schools have a Math for Liberal Arts type courses, and I think that's a good thing.

@ck

That's mostly how it was with us. We still had to take a lot of BS gen ed courses, but we got out of a lot more than anyone else.

I agree people should take interdisciplinary courses. For instance, I greatly enjoyed the 2 history courses I took. I wish I had time for more. But, it needs to be done in an intelligent way that actually adds value to one's education, which is not how any gen ed system I've seen is set up.

AS in IT is typically 2.5-3. BS is 5 like Engineering is nowadays. I know my nephew took 5 for his BS in Civil Engineering. But it's a good thing as they are starting to make coop time a requirementin both fields. But I figure if you cut out some extraneous stuff and trade focused it, 3.5-4 would do for a solid engineer with a specialty. But that means cutting all the extraneous social sciences and focusing on the mathematics, engineering sciences, and just a few general "how to get on in business" classes. I have no doubt non-software engineering takes a bit more study do to the fact that the real world throws forces at you which soiftware developers and engineers don't deal with. But at the same time, software engineers have to learn to deal with the customer at some point unless they get lucky and go straight to work for the engineering department of a software firm. So some of those soft skills should be taught to software engineers but aren't. That is the one thing I wish my AS had included, some business classes for the consultant. But back then, programmers wen't to work for computer companies and didn't interface with the customer as much.

"there's much to be gained in both immediate and long-term effects from encouraging engineers to read literature and write clearly or teaching poets and lawyers to also understand basic scientific concepts"

But isn't this where secondary education *should* come into play? This idea that a high school grad supposedly can read at an 8th grade level... Fuck that! Make them have to read at a 12th grade level. Make a college freshmen have to read, write, be able to do basic math, and know basic scientific principles to start freshman year. If they can't, then make them take a semester of a remedial class that doesn't count towards their credit hours. Make them meet the standards of the school before officially being a freshman instead of lowering the school's standards and calling everyone a freshman.

Honestly, this idea of not knowing what you intend to major in before you start college is stupid. Changing majors I can understand. You get in and discover what you thought you'd like to do with life wasnt' necessarily up your alley after all. But if you completely change the direction, there should be a certain amount of starting over even then. I'm not saying you have to know you want to be an EE, but to know you want to be an Engineer of some sort is good enough. Then to decide you'd rather focus on theoretical physics or applied mathematics, OK. But to change to Art History from Engineering, you have to accept there is a start over factor involved.

I agree that Engineers need more soft skills.

One problem is that everyone is done on computers these days. Fields like MechE and CivE, which used to never even see a computer now do most of their work on one. That adds at least 2 courses to the curriculum, probably more like 4. Whenever someone says they are sure what engineering to do, I always tell them computer, because those skills will always transfer over to any other engineering.

Agreed, Draug. The single biggest problem is that University is forced to play catch-up for subpar Highschool.

So what is your specialty? Obviously, I'm one of Putin's fake engineers (I prefer the term software developer or systems/solution architect anyhow) and my father was a MechE who moved into NDT doing eddy current probe design for companies like GE and Pratt and Whitney and stuff. He worked in the really small clearnces of thousandths of an inch and designed probes that could reach way back into jet engines and inspect surfaces for microcracks with limited disassembly of the engine (remove cowling, and slide in probe). Cool stuff. HE is truly the most brilliant man I've ever personally known.

I focused on Computational Nanoelectronics. Mostly developing mathematical models for molecules and then simulating them in FORTRAN. I'm now trying to move more into Process Engineering for semiconductor devices.

Why does Putin think software engineers aren't real engineers?

because the USSR didn't have any

I would encourage anyine interested in the higher education bubble to take a look at this presentation: http://www.theactivist.org/ydsusa/sites/default/files/powerpoint/NeoLiberalism%20and%20Eduction.pptx

"But isn't this where secondary education *should* come into play? This idea that a high school grad supposedly can read at an 8th grade level... Fuck that! Make them have to read at a 12th grade level. Make a college freshmen have to read, write, be able to do basic math, and know basic scientific principles to start freshman year. If they can't, then make them take a semester of a remedial class that doesn't count towards their credit hours. Make them meet the standards of the school before officially being a freshman instead of lowering the school's standards and calling everyone a freshman. "

I agree to extent. It might be my own biases talking, but I think the circumstances of a history or literature class that you freely choose in college, taught by a college professor, is much different than the experience of a high school course.

@abge - It's OK. Putin doesn't think engineering is creative either and that engineers are nothing more than CAD operators. They just apply rules and make drawings.

@CK - I agree they are different experiences, but an engineer doesn't need a pick and choose lit course if he is taught the fundamentals of his nation's greatest and also cover's world literature to get a perspective of literature from other cultures. Just as a Early American Lit major doesn't need to know calculus.

"But isn't this where secondary education *should* come into play? This idea that a high school grad supposedly can read at an 8th grade level... Fuck that! Make them have to read at a 12th grade level. Make a college freshmen have to read, write, be able to do basic math, and know basic scientific principles to start freshman year. If they can't, then make them take a semester of a remedial class that doesn't count towards their credit hours. Make them meet the standards of the school before officially being a freshman instead of lowering the school's standards and calling everyone a freshman. "
Agree, America's highschool system is now lagging far behind that of many others (Singapore, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Japan, South Korea and Finland being the best examples) and we need to bring it up to bar, not replace highschool standards with liberal arts in post-seconday education.

Funny, considering good engineers are probably the most creative people there are.

@abge - Agreed 1000% (yes one thousand percent).

Yeah, I think there are real problems with putting engineering off in a trade school. To cite just one, I think the most common complaint I hear from engineering managers is that newly minted engineers suck at writing. While that is (obviously) already a problem in the system as it stands, I seriously doubt the solution lies in the direction of dissociating the field further from the humanities.

Another problem with the idea, in my opinion, is that engineers need extremely good math education, and mathematicians would have no interest in leaving general academia. (Some would say the answer is for engineers to teach engineers math. I disagree. I majored in physics and had to take some courses where physicists tried to teach math. They were unmitigated disasters. I doubt engineers would be substantially better, as a class).

I do agree with Draug and others that there should be higher expectations going in.

@semck

Actually, I had the exact opposite experience with math. About half of my math profs were a disaster because they dept just didn't have good quality control and couldn't relate well to engineers. My engineering profs, on the other hand, were better teachers in general and some of them knew math as well as any math prof (some of them actually had PhDs in Applied Math).

And while I do agree that engineers absolutely need to be better at writing, again, I'm not sure seeking profs from outside Engineering is the solution. For instance, we had to take a technical writing course which was taught by full-time faculty in the college of engineering. I never got the impression from any English major I met in college that they understood the requirements of technical writing.

Again, I'm not really arguing that STEMM should be isolated from Liberal Arts. I think there are a lot of advantages to having everyone on the same campus, but I think Universities need to better understand that their needs are different and you simply can't give everyone the same GenEd requirements.

@abge, fair enough -- perhaps there are no universals on that question. Nonetheless, I'm still dubious about completely separating engineering from math departments as a rule.

The problem with what you say on writing is that, while technical writing is its own thing and needs specialized training, the fact is that to be a good technical writer, you're going to have to be a decent _writer_ as a baseline. This is where many engineers are failing, and I don't think engineers are the right people to teach it. Of course, as I say, it is the _present_ system that is failing here, and not just engineers. But I think if there's going to be continued value seen in a broad liberal arts base, that core of the curriculum is going to have to step up its essay writing and critical thinking components. History would be a much more valuable course if you had to write critically about what you were learning and were graded on the arguments as well as the knowledge, to give an example. Every major would benefit, and the graduates in every field would be better trained for the workforce.

Of course, this probably IS true at a few schools, but not at most.

Fair enough abge. I absolutely think there should be some universal gen ed requirements, but you're probably right that there are a few too many for engineers, at present.

"you're going to have to be a decent _writer_ as a baseline."

Agreed 100%. But, they should learn this in HS, not be playing catch-up in college.

"Funny, considering good engineers are probably the most creative people there are."

Not to get pedantic or start a field war, but I think this would be more justifiable if you said SOME of the most creative people there are. Good engineers are at the absolute height of creativity; but so are good writers, good mathematicians, and good scientists, to name a few others. I think by nature we're all most able to appreciate extreme creativity in our own field, but I think the argument that people at the top of one field are more creative than those at the top of another is going to be a difficult one to make.

Of course, this is all pedantic, since your point was in response to the suggestion that engineers are NOT creative, which is indeed absurd.

"Agreed 100%. But, they should learn this in HS, not be playing catch-up in college."

True. And Harvard, MIT, and the public flagships can be so demanding. But given the state of our high schools, not every university can. And while I do think part of the solution is to hold uncompromisingly very high standards in those classes (and also provide resources such as tutors for people who need to work very hard and catch up), it IS a problem these universities need to keep in mind for now.

For the time being, people who did not receive a proper education in HS should be going to a community college. They can save their money and stop holding back people who are where they should be in their education.

Not a bad idea. But not fully implementable I think. First, the university still can't rely on everybody coming out of a junior college being able to write. Second, in practice, that could mean a lot of universities just wouldn't be able to fill their quotas of freshmen at all.

One thing I strongly agree on -- there should never be a sense that people with inadequate preparation are holding the rest back. I had a really striking experience along those lines where I got to see the difference in approaches pretty starkly, but I'll save it for another time. (Read: it's a boring story).

Anyway, I think overall I agree with you. Universities should be teaching at a high level and demanding that from their students. Junior colleges should be filling in gaps. If we disagree at all, it's on how to make the transition in the short term.