Reproduced from PRISM February 2009

http://www.prism-magazine.org/feb09/last_word.cfm
LAST WORD

RE-ENGINEERING ENGINEERING
21st-century needs cant be met with just a four-year degree.
By Norman R. Augustine1
Distance is Dead.
So wrote Frances Cairncross in The Economist. One consequence is that routine engineering has become
a commodity. There will never again be a shortage of engineers in America to perform routine
engineering functions. Such work will simply be shipped abroad at the speed of light to the hordes of
engineers now being produced in several other countries. China, for example, is now graduating more
English-speaking engineers than America. One can hire a half-dozen engineers in India for the cost of one
in America.
But there will always be demand for superbly educated engineers who are capable of performing in an
innovative, creative, and entrepreneurial fashion. It is upon these individuals, together with those who
create fundamental new knowledge, that 21st-century society will depend to a very large degree to solve
looming problems in energy, the environment, national security, healthcare, and the economy. Although
only 4 percent of todays U.S. workforce is composed of engineers and scientists, that 4 percent
disproportionately creates jobs for the other 96 percent.
Unfortunately, the traditional engineering education is in some respects not well suited to the challenges
of the 21st-century global economy. The highly compartmentalized, discipline-oriented, almost
exclusively technical focus embraced by many 21st-century engineering schools served us extremely well
in the past. This is in spite of the fact that nearly two thirds of those who pursued an engineering
education abandoned the effort. Worse yet, women, making up well over half the college enrollment,
produced only 20 percent of the engineers, with minority students even less well represented. But
despite these major talent gaps, Americas engineering schools were justifiably viewed as the best in the
world. And therein lies the problem. As the provost of MIT once told me, speaking of making change in
that institution, You dont understand how difficult it is to overcome 100 years of excellence and
success.

Norman R. Augustine, former undersecretary of the Army, has had a long and illustrious career in both the public
and private sectors, including as chairman and CEO of Lockheed Martin Corp. and CEO of Martin Marietta Corp.
Augustine has served as chairman of the National Academy of Engineering, the Aerospace Industries Association,
and the Defense Science Board and as president of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics and the
Boy Scouts of America. He earned his B.S.E. and M.S.E. in aeronautical engineering from Princeton University,
where he later taught

MEEN 489: Re-Engineering Engineering

But if change is in order, what might be some of the ingredients of a 21st-century engineering education?
The following is the view of but one person, but one who not long ago had 62,000 engineers working for
him:

Ingredients of a 21st-Century Engineering Education

A solid understanding of the fundamental laws of nature physics and chemistry along with a
corresponding understanding of the language of engineering and science: mathematics. These
subjects are the sine qua non of a sound engineering education.

Deep exposure to the concepts of design and analysis, especially the conduct of trade-offs. That
is, a strong understanding of engineering itself.

Other nations will absorb routine engineering tasks. Americas engineers

Exposure to the actual practice of engineering in the freshman year, in part to reduce the number
of students who abandon the field without ever having been exposed to engineering activities.

Knowledge of lessons learned from real-world engineering projects of the past, especially those
embodying failure. Call it Scar Tissue 101 without pain!

Familiarity with at least the rudiments of systems engineering, both technical and nontechnical,
including making trades that involve nonquantifiable aspects.

Consideration of the techniques of operations analysis, underpinned by a grounding in probability

Exposure to modern biosciences, which increasingly permeate almost all fields of engineering.

Understanding of the fundamentals of economics at both the macro and individual-business levels.
Economic considerations play an ever increasing role in what engineers do and what they dont
do. The supersonic transport, the superconducting supercollider, and the mission to Mars are
examples of the latter.

A basic understanding of public policy, government, and history without which tomorrows
engineers can expect to have little influence over the destiny of their profession. It is noteworthy
that in China, eight of the top nine political leaders are engineers.

An exposure to literature, art, and music, not simply for self-satisfaction which is important
but also because not everyone in this world reads Popular Mechanics.

Experience in writing and speaking effectively, so as to correct the greatest shortcoming of

Opportunity to work as a team. While there is still a role for the Edisons and Bells of the world,
the great majority of 21st-century engineers will find themselves working as part of highly diverse
teams.

At least a semester of studying abroad, learning to become comfortable interacting with

Opportunity to explore, challenge, and innovate. This has been a traditional strength of American
engineering education and will become increasingly important. It is noteworthy that toleration of
occasional failure, as long as it is not the result of negligence, incompetence, or ethical failings,
is an essential companion to risk-taking.

MEEN 489: Re-Engineering Engineering

Regarding engineering faculty, increased emphasis on, and rewards for, teaching. Research is an
important aspect of teaching, in addition to being a valuable end in itself; but it is the balanced
combination of teaching and research that has made Americas research universities great. A
modest rebalancing seems to be in order. (The third rail!)

An appreciation of the role of ethics in engineering. Not necessarily the teachings of Socrates,
Kant, or St. Augustine, but rather, the day-to-day, tough ethical decisions that engineers
encounter as they pursue their responsibilities.

How are students going to do all this in four years? The answer is that they are not.
The accumulation of newly generated knowledge, coupled with the broader societal demands on a 21stcentury engineer, is such that the masters degree must become the primary degree of the engineering
profession. It makes little sense that it takes more education to authorize my neighbors cats
vaccination than it takes to design an aircraft or build a bridge or construct a nuclear power plant on
which vast numbers of human lives will depend.
A few years ago, I was giving a lecture at a highly regarded U.S. engineering school and mentioned
that I had been studying the requirements for a bachelors degree in mechanical engineering stipulated
in the catalogue. In addition to the conventional science, math, and engineering curriculum, the
mandatory course work included six semesters of French or German, two semesters of English literature,
and one semester each of rhetoric, English composition, U.S. history, European history, industrial history,
political economics, business law, and the economics of corporations. I commended the school on this
superb curriculum, and then pointed out that the catalogue I had been citing was for the year 1900!
Perhaps if we want to leap forward, it is time to move backward.
Many countries are experimenting with new approaches to engineering education. In India, a private
citizen is building a university offering a unique curriculum to support tens of thousands of students. The
president of France has announced a major revamping of that countrys institutions of higher education.
Ireland has already fundamentally changed its long-enduring relationship or should we say
nonrelationship between the economic sector and the academic community. China is building a large
number of new, nontraditional institutions, mostly focused on science and engineering. Singapore and
Korea are changing their educational systems to place more emphasis on innovation rather than rote.
And Saudi Arabia recently announced a major new research university that will operate entirely at the
graduate level and that will have, on opening day, an endowment equal to what it took MIT 142 years to
accumulate.
Winston Churchill said that you can always count on the Americans to do the right thing after they
have tried everything else. When it comes to engineering education, it has never been more important
that we get it right; that we preserve the many strengths of the past while adding those features that
address the needs of the future. Only in this way can engineering remain the exciting, vital, contributing,
and rewarding profession it has been in the past.

MEEN 489: Re-Engineering Engineering