Engineering Education in the IT age 1

[nades]

I want to know the opinions of other people about the change of Engineering Education in the IT age. I think that there is a major change has been done in the way we teach and learn engineering in the last ten years. The existence of the Internet made an important role in the modification of the way we teach.
I want your comments on that.

 

[xnuke]

As a college instructor, I see too much reliance on computing devices. GIGO, people! That seems to be the root of the problem. I agree with the other posters above who have said that many students don't develop understanding of the problems assigned. Additionally, many students don't really understand what they're doing with regards to the calculator/computer. They often use the tool improperly, as was also noted above.

For example, a popular electric circuits textbook uses radians for the frequency argument and degrees for the phase shift argument in sinusoids. I still laugh when I think of the student who entered the data provided into his calculator without reconciling to a consistent system of units! His graph looked nothing like the picture in the book. I wonder why?

I appreciate the use of computers in engineering for system modeling, tedious calculations, their graphical output capabilities, and for iterative analyses - and so do my students. It will be difficult to function in the workplace without computer literacy.

I will not let my students become dependent on them, however. I remind them that there really is only one brain behind the solution to the problem - their own - and that they have to understand what they're doing, the limitations that are inherent in the tools and techniques they are using, and the concepts they are applying.

xnuke
"Live and act within the limit of your knowledge and keep expanding it to the limit of your life." Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged.
Please see FAQ731-376 for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips.

 

[whyun]

Just like we don't give first graders calculators to do arithmetic, computers should be banned from colleges until students have learned the fundamental engineering principles. Sounds extreme but really its how I feel.

If engineers can't perform their work in the absence of computer programs or calculators, they are not truly engineers.

 

[SnTMan]

Do I detect a trend?

 

[GregLocock]

I imagine so.

Having said that there are certainly programs around that would increase the rate of understanding of problems.

If you have ever seen the demo version of Working Model 2D it could reinforce and expand the book-learning of a dynamics student much faster than a lab can, although the lab is still compulsory.

http://www.design-simulation.com/WM2D/versiondiff.php

I use an equivalent 3D program to this all the time - I am very cynical about the 'canned' models, but building a mechanism up from basics is very eductaional.

But as an engineer you still need to understand spring/mass/damper systems, you still need to be able to write the equations down, playing with virtual Erector sets is fine for learning but hard to justify to a client. (Well, sometimes I get jobs like that!).

Similarly - who has learned more about structures - the one that has handsolved a uniformly loaded beam on 3 pinned supports, or someone who loads the geomerty into an FEA program and hits the 'solve' button?





Cheers

Greg Locock

Please see FAQ731-376 for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips.

 

[electricpete]

Steve - Yes, I got my MSEE 100% off-campus. Degree requirements are the same as an on-campus students.

As far as ABET accredidation, I am pretty sure that it does not apply to graduate engineering programs, only undergraduate engineering programs. The relevant question to ask of a graduate school is whether their undergrad program in the same area is accredited. (Georgia Tech has an accredited undergrad engineering program.)

http://www.cdl.gatech.edu/dl/servlet/DLHome

Under news:
"According to U. S. News & World Report Georgia Tech's Graduate School of Engineering is ranked 4th in the nation. Our online degree programs the best and largest in the USA, and we are the number one public institution in engineering research."

=====================================
Eng-tips forums: The best place on the web for engineering discussions.

 

[davidbeach]

electripete is correct about accreditation, only the undergraduate programs are ABET accredited. University of Idaho also offers a Masters program without any on-campus classes.

 

[DaveVikingPE]

There's nothing wrong with computers in college.

It's how their use is encouraged.

I would encourage students to exploit to the maximum extent practicable the computer for writing papers.

As far as engineering goes, though, teachers should only accept hand-written homework, tests, and lab notes (I'd require type-written lab reports later on, though).

There's no need to learn, for example, structural analysis software packages in college as a) they should take about a week to learn, and b) they're used for analysis of problems that cannot be solved by hand in a timely manner. I mean, would you assign a full building structural frame problem for homework? No. Just give 'em a 2d problem that can be solved, at most, in a couple of hours. Same goes especially for trusses.

Over-emphasizing computers in engineering school will only breed generations of appliance users. If they want the answers, let 'em go to the library and read a bunch more books.

 

[csd72]

Good Point DVPE,

Every new job I interview for they ask me can you use 'X' software package. Once you take that week to get used to the first one you can pick up most of the others and use them within a couple of hours.

Do you think accountants get taught how to use accounting software in their degrees?

Learning how to program spreadsheets e.t.c. is a valuable tool that may save you hours of iterative work, but there is no need to teach proprietary packages.

 

[Tropx]

I agree that you can only learn the foundation concepts of a field by working through the hand calculations. There is a problem in EE high tech fields though where familiarity with tools is considered a job requirement. This puts the student in the tough position of deciding between learning the course concepts or learning the tool to get the lab done. Most tool companies also push their wares to the universities and I would argue that those tools are overkill for undergraduate in most cases. If I was given the choice an undergraduate degree would look like:
Year 1: All hand calculations and theory. Only physical labs.
Year 2: Add Programming language like C and Matlab.
Year 3: Same.
Year 4: Intoduce students to commercial packages in specific course (i.e. Cadence in a transistor level design course)

Graduate: Appropriate at this level to use commercial packages for design.

 

[Feric]

Hi there:

I would like to add that basic engineering needs to be taught in the same fashion as it has been for many years and hand calculations need to be done by hand so the people can get the feeling for the basic engineering laws, trends and numbers.

Once basic engineering knowledge is acquired, then computer tools and IT can help speed up the rest of the engineering basic course work.

In summary, basics stay basics and there should be a good mix and careful introduction of the computer tools in the engineering learing process.

Otherwise, people coming out from engineering schools will end up relying too much on computer tools and IT technology without knowing what to expect and what the outcome is.

Software is nice, but there are lots of bugs that need to be taken care of and validations done before one can trust the output numbers for the given input values.

Thanks,

Gordan Feric, PE
Engineering Software

http://members.aol.com/engware

 

[Grubbyky]

I'm fresh from school. I used a computer model in one class for one project (EPAnet); we solved similar problems on paper first. We would have to write our own VB programs, or MathCAD, or Excel in order to solve problems. For the way I think, I have to write everything on paper first, then use the computer as a tool to solve it.

You almost have to have a better understanding of how to solve problems to use a computer tool to solve it (as long as it isn't a program someone else created) because it will never work right the first time, and you have to find your mistake (figuring out which cell on a spreadsheet is wrong can be more difficult than finding a mistake on paper.)

From what I could tell, not much has changed in what we learn. I think the dependence on computer models must come after school, though I haven't used any programs other than Excel and AutoCAD. (I learned drafting by hand in high school, so I wouldn't say I'm totally dependent on AutoCAD.)

 

[kat6787]

I think a lot of how computers are incorporated into the curriculum has to do with the professors. I had some professors that wanted everything done in Excel or MatLAB, while others, even through upper level senior courses, would not accept anything that was hand calculated. At the time it was horrible trying to do structural analysis by hand (I still have nightmares about one particular direct stiffness method test on a frame with 8 members), but after it was said and done I knew how the process worked, not just how to build a model in an analysis program. Analysis software packages were not even inrtoduced to us until our senior year, which I feel is the best way to do it. Before junior and senior year you don't know enough to know if your answer is even practical, let alone correct.

Computers can be great resources as long as they are taught to be used as resources and not as a crutch.

Cheers,
Kat

 

[Lion06]

sms-
It is my understanding that a school can have EITHER a B.S. program accredited OR a M.S. program, but not both. I don't know of too many schools who have an accredited M.S. as that would mean the B.S. can't be accredited.
Please correct me if this is inaccurate.

 

[KENAT]

Well, it's certainly not true in the UK. My university offered BEng, MEng, MPhil & PHD in various types of engineering.

I graduated at the end of the 90s. While we were introduced to them we didn't do any actual FEA or CFD work as part of the main course, I think people doing certain projects etc may have but it would have been the minority.

We did have 2 computing modules learning C. We used computers in various labs but mostly as a back up to hand methods. The once exception was our brief drawing class which was all CAD, if Autosketch counts as CAD!

 

[Lion06]

KENAT-
I didn't mean that a school can't have a B.S. and a M.S. program (most do). I am pretty certain, however, that only one of the programs can be accredited by ABET.

 

[GrimesFrank]

Structural,
Not my alma mater.
You can get your bachelor's as credit towards PEng or you can receive your undergraduate in Chemistry, Physics, etc. and go for your master's in engineering and also receive credit towards your PEng.
It was funny watching the BSc majors in my master's courses struggle with the jargon/lingo used by the rest of us....

Today is gone. Today was fun.
Tomorrow is another one.
Every day, from here to there,
funny things are everywhere.

 

[Lion06]

GrimesFrank-
I am not talking about counting as time toward the PE (that is a licensure issue taken up by individual states). I am talking about ABET accreditation. Typically, ABET does not accredit a graduate program unless the school has no undergraduate program. The undergraduate ABET accredited program is the only one that matters in terms of licensure (in most, if not all, states).
I have never seen any requirement for a graduate program to be accredited to count as time toward the PE.
That being said, my initial response to sms asking if you have to be "on campus" at least some time to get an "accredited" graduate degree was that most graduate programs are not ABET accredited anyway.

 

[KENAT]

StructuralEIT, I made it clear in my post I was talking UK. The accreditation process is different there. All the courses were accredited.

 

[GrimesFrank]

Structural,
I don't know of your juridiction but in mine you have to have recevieved a degree from an ABET accredited institute in order to qualify for licensure.....or prove a long long history of industrial experience citing specific use of material taught in a ABET accredited program. (Not recommended)

Today is gone. Today was fun.
Tomorrow is another one.
Every day, from here to there,
funny things are everywhere.

 

[Lion06]

GrimesFrank-
Only your undergrad degree has to be ABET accredited. A graduate degree does not have to be ABET accredited.