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July 19, 2006
Redefining Engineering for the Year 2020
Engineering, through its role in the creation and implementation of technology, has been critical to the improvement and vitality of our national economic well-being, health and quality of life. It's been called "the foundation of American ingenuity." But it needs to change, according to the National Academy of Engineering.
Engineering has been called the "stealth profession," because so many people remain clueless as to what engineers do — which is unfortunate, because engineering is linked to everything in society.
Engineering, through its role in the creation and implementation of technology, has been critical to the improvement and vitality of our national economic well-being, health and quality of life. In fact, according to an interview with Dr. Peter Pao, a 27-year veteran of the aerospace and electronics industry and Raytheon's acting corporate VP of Engineering, Technology, Manufacturing and Quality, "The foundation of American ingenuity is engineering."
But it needs to change, according to the National Academy of Engineering (NAE).
The NAE aspires for engineers of 2020 to be more than just competent or admirable technicians — the forthcoming years will require ingenious leaders — ingenious engineers. The globally interconnected world that is shaped in nearly every way by accelerated, seamless and indispensable technological innovation will need Renaissance Engineers: analytical, business-savvy leaders who are effective communicators, creative and inventive, inquisitive, detail oriented and possessing of practical ingenuity.
Of course, this well-rounded Renaissance Engineer must learn early.
The NAE's "Engineer of 2020" initiative, an attempt to determine the kind of engineering education that must be provided to students to prepare them for careers less than two decades from now, had two phases. The first was a community-wide conversation to identify the dynamic forces at play and then aspirations and expectations that should characterize engineering in 2020. The second phase, which involved an educational summit, offered a number of ideas for how engineering education could rise to the challenge through various education reform, including changes in the curriculum, extracurricular options, new approaches to educational delivery and innovative options for educational structure.
"The education we provide engineers must prepare them to move beyond merely fulfilling a technological function and become leaders who make wise decisions about technology and set policies that foster innovation," G. Wayne Clough, Georgia Institute of Technology president and NAE member, said at the beginning of the second phase in his alumnus magazine.
The NAE Committee on Engineering Education, in its executive summary, said future engineers should be broadly educated, ethically grounded citizens, capable of being leaders in business and public service. It said that in order for the engineering profession to define its own future, it must do the following: foster a vision; transform engineering education to achieve that vision; build a clear image for new roles for engineers in the minds of the public and prospective students; accommodate innovative developments from non-engineering fields; and focus the energies of the different disciplines of engineering toward common goals.
Is the engineering profession not doing that now?
A sobering reality lies in that the past 15 years have seen the number of engineering and computer science B.S. degrees granted in the U.S. drop from about 110,000 to a low of 88,000, although it has recently rebounded to about 109,000, according to the National Science Board (NSB). Despite the rebound, the U.S. still is granting engineering degrees at a lower rate than in the mid-1980s, and nationally, less than 55 percent of students who undertake engineering studies complete them, according to Clough.
Another consideration is the suggested lack of local interest and talent and a lack of engineering-related education programs for future American engineers. As overseas countries offer incentives to their brightest students to learn in the U.S. and then offer job security for them to return, U.S. engineering programs fill up with students from overseas, who then return home once they graduate. The shortage of U.S. students has a drastic effect on where companies go to find talent.
Added to fewer U.S. engineering students is the increasing export of engineering jobs overseas.
In the global economy of the future, routine aspects of engineering (if not entire total project work) very well may be performed overseas. This is a major concern for those in the profession even now. According to EE Times' 2005 State of the Engineer Survey, offshore contracting "looms large." Second only to job security and unemployment (68 percent), offshore outsourcing was the top issue of concern, with 64 percent of engineer respondents stating it as primary undercurrent of anxiety.
To assure the future vitality of engineering in the U.S., argues NAE member and BE&K Inc. founder Theodore C. Kennedy, engineers in the U.S. will need skills that distinguish them from engineers in other countries and justify their higher wages. "We need to change what we expect from engineers, and we have to turn out graduates with broader skills, interests and abilities," says the engineering and construction services provider chairman. "With the commoditizing of basic design engineering and the migration of that function overseas, the traditional training ground for recent graduates is no longer available in the United States."
Of course, when it comes to reforming engineering education for a broader-studied future engineer, "the devil is in the details," as Clough wrote recently.
The engineering curriculum is already crowded, and adding anything is difficult. We all agree that the fundamentals of engineering must be taught, but, given the imperative for change, we must begin to rethink what we casually call a university education — both out-of-class experiences and in-class learning.
While the majority of U.S. engineering colleges have been working for some time to improve engineering education through NSF Education Coalitions and in collaboration with ABET, and although these efforts have been impressive, "they have rarely focused on the long view," said Clough. This is why NAE's Engineer of 2020 initiative is encouraging more long-range thinking in its attempt to determine the kind of engineering education that must be provided to prepare U.S. engineering graduates for careers two decades from now.
"Because large-scale changes in engineering education will take time, we must start now to change our approach to engineering education in time to produce graduates ready for 2020," according to Clough. He, along with the whole of The National Academy of Engineering, says it is imperative that engineering education anticipates the future rather than reacts to the past.
Simply put, the profession must be redefined to create a sort of Renaissance Man type of engineer. What attributes will that engineer of 2020 have? The NAE report says he or she "will aspire to have the ingenuity of Lillian Gilbreth, the problem-solving capabilities of Gordon Moore, the scientific insight of Albert Einstein, the creativity of Pablo Picasso, the determination of the Wright brothers, the leadership abilities of Bill Gates, the conscience of Eleanor Roosevelt, the vision of Martin Luther King and the curiosity and wonder of our grandchildren."
We ask you, the readers, is all of this necessary?
Sources
Reforming Engineering Education
by G. Wayne Clough
The Bridge (V. 36, No. 2 - Summer 2006)
The "Value-Added" Approach to Engineering Education: An Industry Perspective
by Theodore C. Kennedy
The Bridge (V. 36, No. 2 - Summer 2006)
Educating Engineers for 2020 and Beyond
by Charles M. Vest
The Bridge (V. 36, No. 2 - Summer 2006)
Companies look for engineers outside U.S.
by Bob Robuck
News 8 Austin, Nov. 11, 2005
The Ingenious Engineer of 2020
Georgia Tech Alumni Magazine
An Interview With Dr. Peter Pao, Raytheon's Chief Technology Officer
Raytheon, March 2006
High pay, high anxiety
by David Roman
EE Times, Aug. 22, 2005
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22 CommentsRead Theodore Kennedy's article linked to this page. He cries big crocodile tears over the shortages and deficiencies of American engineering graduates. His problem is largely his own fault, and the fault of others like him.
I've been working in this trade for 30+ years. For a while, the business types figured they could save money by firing experienced engineers and hiring greenhorns – I've been down-sized, right-sized and happy-sized three times so far. The new grad learning curve was just a cost of doing business.
Now they've gone a step further, and exported American engineering jobs to India. I know a new grad who gave up on engineering and took a job as an insurance adjuster because there were no engineering jobs to be had. Read the member letters in publications like ASME's "Mechanical Engineering" and you'll see that the situation is by no means unique. I wouldn't advise any kid to study engineering. Why take on a backbreaking load of student loan debt, bust your hump in a challenging course of study, then have to compete with people who are happy to be making $5.00 per hour?
Mr. Kennedy can provide "value-added" engineering for now, using the old gray heads who survived the firings. But with the entry- and mid-level work sent overseas, there's nobody behind them to take their place when they retire. Mr. Kennedy might lose his own job then, because the only people qualified to do "value added" work will be the experienced Indian engineers now doing the "commodity" work. There's justice in that. Unfortunately, it will bite the rest of us too.
One thing I see that I think has historically driven a lot of students away is the "be a 'master of all trades'" approach to engineering education. Too much time is taken up with difficult courses that in reality are of limited or no use for most engineers and ultimately cause students to drop out of engineering and go into another field.
It would be fine if you were specializing in some of those particular areas but there needs to be a narrowing of approach that while yes, it will lead to more specialized engineers, they will be better trained in their fields of specialty.
July 19, 2006 2:46 PMHail to you Frank,
You are right in everything you say. Finally, I see a realistic assessment of a bad situation. It doesn't make it better but at least it shows that not all of us have our heads up our behind, or that we accept the brain washing. The burocrats tell us that by decimating engineering and sending it to India and China they do us a favor by allowing us to take care of more "IMPORTANT" things, like becoming their "yes" man.
I just want to add that when the entry and medium level jobs are sent to India or China, our greenhorn engineers make Project management rather than engineering, and will only get the experience of a paper pusher, bean counter, milestone shoving while pretending that he is an engineer.
Phd's in universities should not forget that they might give somebody the tools to become an engineer but you become an engineer by practicing the profession, designing and solving technological problems.
I salute another term you used and even though is only scratching the surface of the issue is a good reminder of some of the plagues that our profession is facing. The words are "value-added". There are more and more non-value-added individuals making decisions in regards to our profession that we would like to recognize. The irony is that they have no clue (like the article mentions) about what our job consists off.
When bean-counting management restructures young engineers into submission and compliance, it degrades their professional status to paper pushers, yes man, black belts and the people that can justify technically the most absurd technological or manufacturing ideas. One can only expect that the quality of the engineers in North America will deteriorate.
One other contributing factor is also the fact that most of the experienced engineers are forced into retirement, or even worse, forced into abandoning engineering for other professions.
July 19, 2006 2:56 PMRight-O!
However, forced retirements are becoming
more common which seem to follow new trends in
"company profiling" for the sake of it's insurance
programs.
"The issues surrounding employee liability out weighs the importance of education, experience or production" is the message this sends out! This approach tends to favor less-qualified "fresh recruits" as it downgrades veteran engineers. The new-employee screening techniques spawned by this thinking are possibly the #1 killer of inspiration and productivity affecting every layer in every field of engineering. If you're thinking about "going in", why bother when you could sell cars and actually realize a better income and retirement? If you're trying to "stay in", you'd better get used to being all dressed up with no place to go!
-M
July 21, 2006 11:05 AMThank goodness for the comments and the good com-mentors. They bring out the truth in an interesting and important subject dialogue.
Yes I too, once upon a brief time, was a senior systems engineer at Raytheon where management was more interested in getting the contract executed, getting the money in and winning the next contract. They roboticised the process by taking new engineers and applying "value added" tools like sick-sigma to their work. The problem was, the new engineers didn't know anything about the system they were "engineering."
July 21, 2006 11:48 AMI am not so sure that the solution is in changing the curriculum in the colleges of engineering. The experiences of engineers having some great careers only to be disrupted or cut short by the lack of respect, importance or value of engineering by MBAs and CPAs can only be solved when our culture demands respect, importance and value of our engineers. The general public takes for granted all the works of engineering, yet without those thousands of products and services they use every day, they would still be living in a cave foraging for food and firewood. Turn out the lights for a day and see what reaction you get. When will the Engineering Societies go to the media and get their story out? This is a typical engineering problem that, if not described properly, will find solutions of little value.
August 9, 2006 1:19 PMInteresting. My version of the engineers needed for the year 2020 is:
- Engineers that work for $30,000.00 to $40,000.00/yr in year 2020 currency
- Engineers that have great experience in design, or manufacturing, or process, but don't give a damn about PowerPoint, 6 sigma, or management's master plan. You know what kind of engineer, the one that gets the job done without making waves or a big fuss.
- Engineers that can accept and thrive on management's indifference to the profession and engineers in general.
- Engineers that are left after The Big 3 are will become the Little 3.
The MBAs and CPAs vent old frustrations from when they were in university and they were looking up to the students of engineering because they were smarter and had to work harder, and [the MBAs and CPAs] knew they themselves wouldn't make it through half an hour of a course in engineering.
Should I continue? I think we all got the idea. Our society is selling our jobs for cheap in China and India, is ignoring the profession to the point of blaming it of all management failures, is trading our manufacturing for "cheap" (read low quality also) products, is giving away our know-how and technical innovations, processes and technology that we paid for over here and then wants to have more engineers in 2020?
For what: so that we become a dime a dozen? We're getting there in no time fast anyway, considering how scarce our jobs have become. Does anybody really think that after seeing what happens to the manufacturing in North America any engineer will tell his son or daughter, go and study to become an engineer in 2020? HA! What a joke!
P.S.
Does anyone look at HR ads when they look for engineers? Most of the time, you can tell he or she guy knows nothing about the profession. All that he is interested is that he doesn't forget any of the buzz words. "You have to be familiar with APQP, PPAP, FMEA, PFMEA, DFMEA, 6 SIGMA, TQM, 17649, IS0 14000, 8D, LEAN, QS, KAIZAN"...you tell me what I forgot. It is so funny that most of the time they want somebody with 2-3 years experience. That means that all they need is a manager babysitter, flexible "yes man" (team player) that doesn't know much about anything.
Give me a break, the American Industry, or whatever is left of it in 2020 doesn't need Engineers.
The attributes of an engineer? Lillian Gilbret, Gordon Moore, Albert Einstein, Pablo Picasso, Wright brothers, Bill Gates, Eleanor Roosevelt, Martin Luther King - which of these were engineers? or graduates of any science? An engineer is not an eastern terrorist that can canceal western destruction in the smallest container. An engineer is not someone that got rich quickly, gained public confidence at all risk, married a politician, or was a great artist. Inventors are not always engineers. Engineers are not necessarily inventors.
An American engineer is someone that spends four to six years time and $100K finances up front for a piece of paper that allows layoff every three years, forced retirement any age above 50, immediate chastise and probable dismissal for technical achievement the boss couldn't claim, communication with the enemy corporate expert, or participating in non-professional activities like fishing with family, communion with community, or practice of private worship.
The engineer's patent is public disclosure of technical details for easy duplication across any border.
An engineer is a technical expert. An expert is accepted at home as a free source of information and regarded abroad as too expensive to consult or too focused for practice.
As engineers we have the answers. No one is asking the right questions. Kinda like low cost affordable clean renewable heat energy with a corn stove. The government keeps looking for hydrogen or ethanol to shine. Corn is hydrogen and carbon. Ethanol is liquid corn. Local grown, combine run, whole kernel shelled corn combustion makes the low cost, safe, local, clean, affordable, healthy, renewable non-toxic, non-explosive, heat? Impersonate an engineer and Go figure.
August 11, 2006 10:11 AMNick S. is somewhere between 99 and 101% corect.
the NEA and Messrs. Clough and Kennedy have their heads in the sand or in the clouds, but not down here where we engineers strive.
out of 100 entering freshmen aspiring engineers at Prof Clough's GA Tech, how many will be "ingenious leaders", or "leaders who make wise decisions" or "business-savvy leaders"? No---most of us are "merely fulfilling a technological function" and proud that in doing so we have founded the basis for today's western cullture and society. You wouldn't be here without us in the front lines. Can a geneeral win a war without the "grunts" in the field?
please save [i don't know for whom] the clever new and meaningless language of "seamless" and "foster a vision", etc.
August 11, 2006 1:31 PMI agree with the general consensus here. I myself would not recommend engineering as a safe profession for any child. I have witnessed excellent engineers being let go because they "make too much money", and replaced with someone that does not have a clue how to take over that position. No fault to the young engineer, after all, management is expecting them to run with the same projects and ideas as someone who has gained their knowledge with many years of experience. I think we can all agree that true engineering is not learned in the classroom, but by experience and the absorption of knowledge from the people around us.
If they want to change the curriculum, they need to add a political science class for engineering success. The political side of corporate America sure plays a major role to decide whether an engineer is considered "successful" or "talented", not actual talent.
Industry is moving out while service and management jobs are moving in. Industry has become so unstable and top heavy that I have already changed careers. I graduated from college in 2002 and have already been through a hiring freeze and a division relocation downsizing. I had to scramble to find a new job and realized that I was trying to compete with Masters level and PhD's who were also downsized. I took a step backward, a large pay cut and switched careers. I am in a safe position for now, out of industry. My salary will climb again and I know that I will not have to worry as much for the next few years.
This article really tells it like it is!!! Plus, after reading all the comments, it's obvious that I'm not the only Engineer who has become increasingly frustrated with our profession and our treatment at the hands of Corporate America.
However, there is one more point that has not been addressed. The part that Academia plays in this scenario.
University professors are paid something like $50 per head for every student in their classroom. So, in their greed, they supply bogus statistics to the INS stating that there is a shortage of engineering students in America. They then petition the INS to grant more student visa's to bring in foreign students to populate the classrooms.
The laws state that these foreign exchange students must return to their country of origin to practice what they have learned attending U.S. schools. However, the majority of them prefer to stay in America.
Now comes the KICKER. Corporate America offers these foreign students jobs at 1/2 the price they would have to pay for an American citizen. Thus, they obtain jobs that a U.S. citizen should have obtained and they lower the going rate for engineers, across the board.
That really makes the American graduate engineers "Happy Campers".
Needless to say, this scenario certainly does nothing to promote respect for, or allegiance to, American employers, or the college professors that are teaching very little practical application engineering -- but plenty of theory to their students. Which really does nothing to prepare the graduates for applying their skills to solving most of the problems encountered in the real world of Engineering and Design.
Now, this flock of "engineers" armed with nothing but a worthless diploma are placed in the trenches, without the proper guidance of a seasoned engineer to teach them the proper way to apply their skills -- because corporate America has already turned their wise, grey-haired engineers loose.
So, what happens next? The Company places these green engineers in management so that they are able to bring their projects in "Over Budget" and are "Unable to make the Schedule Deadline".
Of course, these same people do not know how to manage or treat their people right.
Oh yeah -- that's progress for you !!! And it's also great for morale.
Bob L. -- Dallas, TX
August 25, 2006 1:33 PM
