Whither Engineering Education

[arunmrao]

I am from India and I have a few experiences to share.Excellent educational centres, manufacturing industries and reseach labs have been established in the past 50 years. I am a product of such reseach institution. Today we find they are slowly turning into museums. There are no young engineers bubbling with energy and enthusiasm to learn and progress. Funding to these institutions has declined .

Teachers and researchers are reluctant to continue and are shifting to administration related assignments.Whatever is left behind in this place is of very low quality.

I am apalled to think of the future. It is for our generation to set the priorities right. We shall be left with a whole lot of youngsters disoriented with wrong priorities and value systems.

Basic sciences and engineering will be the victims of this shift. I try to talk to youngsters and the teachers as well. But all are interested in moving over to USA and other western countries.

We have half baked designers and technicians manning the positions.These have no field experiences and sit at a computer and produce improbable drawings and specifications.

Is there a cure for all these? Probably universally the experiences may be same. We have the largest population and equally large percentage of unemployment,but still it is difficult to attract the young ones into the stream.

 

[brad]

Arun,
I can't help but laugh. I am an American. There is a saying "The grass is always greener on the other side". I think in this case "My grass is always browner" is the more appropriate saying.

I say this, because many Americans are extremely worried that all of our engineering will be moved to India because of economics and a perception of strong Indian engineering.

My point is that I could substitute "USA" for "India" in your post, and many fellow members would agree with me. All of your concerns are also American concerns. As you suggested, this is apparently more than a regional thing.

I am equally concerned in this issue.

Regards,
Brad

 

[rhodie]

Well said, Brad.

Irony, to say the least.
Maybe we'd all benefit by stop worrying about it.

 

[FrenchCAD]

I don't worry about it. I worry more about the continuous drop of number of engineers. There is a lack of engineers all around the world, which makes every one to look at what happends next door. Personnally, I'm French and I love my country, but if I had the opportunity to get a job in another country, I'd be like "hey, why not, that would be great". And if I had this opportunity, this would mean that the country I'd be flying to is lacking an engineer in my field. But then, the lack would be in France. See my point? I don't think it's only a matter of greener grass on the other side, it's also a matter of engineers population

Cyril Guichard
Mechanical Engineer

 

[GregLocock]

Cyril, where do you get the idea that there is a shortage of engineers? have you got some numbers?

The reason I ask is that the universities seem to be producing more and more graduates every year. Admittedly not all of them are destined to be very good, in fact half will be worse than average (grin), nonetheless there is a huge pool of heads to choose from.

One thing I have seen in twenty years is a great reduction in the intake of engineers BEFORE and during university, by engineering companies. They now tend to take people on as graduates. This makes some sense, as they will not be training up enginers who flunk out of their degree courses, but is a shame for those (like me) who stuck with it. I have no doubt that my year before uni gave me a solid grounding in the practical side of engineering and getting on with people (such as it exists), which helped me enormously during and after uni.


Cheers

Greg Locock

 

[rhodie]

in fact half will be worse than average

This brought an evil smile to my face. It is a long story, but one time I started a huge e-mail war inside the company by declaring half of all our product made was below average. Then I added that it was always going to be that way, no matter how hard we tried.

 

[FrenchCAD]

"Cyril, where do you get the idea that there is a shortage of engineers? have you got some numbers?"

Well, it's a fact here in France, there are less and less students to take engineering classes (In Mechanical Engineeging, that is. Computer Eng is still full of student)

And I know from all the placements I did that companies are facing quite an important lack of engineers. For my last placement, for exemple, my chief of service was looking for 5 engineers and couldn't find them. I got the place because I had the profile. Wanna know how it happened? I left my resume on an engineers forum in Strasbourg, where I was student. The company I gave my resume is located close to Paris. They phoned me 3 months later to offer me the place. My chief explained me he was looking for people with my profile for months and couldn't find them. I was the first over the 5 he was looking for...

I'll have to look for some numbers if you want some.

Cyril Guichard
Mechanical Engineer

 

[leanne]

in fact half will be worse than average

Wouldn't this only be true for a normal distribution?

Case in point - a non-normal distribution set of data points: sample of 10 (set = 3,5,7,9,8,8,8,9,10,10)

median
Rearrange the set if needed to find the median: (set = 3,5,7,8,8,8,9,9,10,10) The median of this set is 8.

mode
For lists, the mode is the most common (frequent) value. A list can have more than one mode. The mode for this set is 8.

mean/average
The sum of a list of numbers, divided by the total number of numbers in the list. The mean is 7.7 for this set.

standard deviation
Standard deviation tells how spread out numbers are from the average/mean. Calculate by taking the square root of the arithmetic average of the squares of the deviations from the mean in a frequency distribution. The standard deviation is 2.213594362 for this set.

Since the set = 3,5,7,9,8,8,8,9,10,10 & the average is 7.7, only 3 are below average. That is 30%.

The 68-95-99.7% Rule: all normal density curves satisfy the following property which is often referred to as the Empirical Rule.

Do 68% of the observations fall within 1 standard deviation of the mean, that is in this set's case, between 5.486405638 and 9.913594362? No, 60% fall within this range
95% of the observations fall within 2 standard deviations of the mean, that is in this set's case, between 3.272811276 and 12.12718872? No, 90% fall within the range
99.7% of the observations fall within 3 standard deviations of the mean, that is in this set's case, between 1.059216914 and 14.34078309? Yes, 100% of the values are in this range

3 is 3 std deviations from mean
5 is 2 std deviations from mean
7 is 1 std deviations from mean
9 is 1 std deviations from mean
8 is 1 std deviations from mean
8 is 1 std deviations from mean
8 is 1 std deviations from mean
9 is 1 std deviations from mean
10 is 2 std deviations from mean
10 is 2 std deviations from mean

Is this set a normal distribution? No, it only satisfies part of the requirements for a normal distribution.

Only 30% of the data point in this sample set are below average. But, then, this is a small set & the larger the set is, the more it approaches a normal distribution in which case the 50:50 below & above average statement would become true.

Just causing a little trouble &

 

[brad]

Women . . .
(and for those who view this as offensive, I'm teasing leanne relevant to other conversations)

Brad

 

[sayee1]

Bradh
read the Thread on "Encouraging women to enroll in engineering" if those are the other conversations referred to by you!! Impressive usage of Statistics LeAnne!! Good sense of humour- This is to Bradh as well as LeAnne!

Thanks and regards
Sayee Prasad R
Ph: 0097143968906
Mob: 00971507682668
email: sayee_prasad@yahoo.com
The whole of science is nothing more than a refinement of everyday thinking!!!

 

[leanne]

Sayee, in my best Elvis impression, thank you, thank you very much!

Brad: you schweetheart, you!

 

[pablo02]

Well, I am (or was) a third generation electrical engineer in the utility field -- my father was laid off when he was 50, I was laid off when I was 50 -- [in the 80's we hired warm bodies (who were graduate engineers) because we couldn't afford nor attract those who who were really good... so, we were left with a few really solid engineers and many who should have been let go]; so, in order to save money, the company decided to lay off almost all of the engineers and use rank and file to do the work (don't get me wrong, many of those rank & file were outstanding people) but lacked the experience and the background to make many of the operating and maintenance decisions... the company is happy with this, because their ($) window is 24 months or less... many of those decisions don't come home to roost until 5 - 10 years down the road...

it is a trend seen throughout the industry and (after spending 6 months looking for a new job) I'll say it spreads across many industries... and although there is anguish about the aging of our engineers and the fewer ones graduating, I know several who have no job prospects just getting out of school and are looking elsewhere for employment... (along with many of my former co-workers still looking for work after 2 years...)

I think that engineering will continue to spiral downward leaving only nitch areas for employment...

I don't think our businees leaders are interested in anything other than making a buck and as a result, our "progress" will actually digress.....

 

[flamby]

Arun,

I can offer only one practical(?) suggestion, already given by rhodie (but not practiced) - stop worrying. Rhodie is tormenting himself that all American job are moving to India. While the gloomy picture of America presented by him may be true, but we don't see any euphoria and activity on ground here in India. To the contrast we see that year after year we are earning less as compared to the average inflation we see. The downhill drive of research and development is well seen. At best, we are copycats of west. Just copying their manufacture and producing it at lower cost (at low wages)is no engineering and is sure to take us down.

Offering advice is easy, but yes, I am worried too.

 

[arunmrao]

An engineer is found selling credit cards, personal loans and other such loan products. He is enticed by the glamour that these industries provide and is less inclined to move over to engineering industries.

The engineer working in a MNC is a dignified emailer who keeps sending mails to his principals for clarifications on small issues. There is just no engineering activity by our local engineer. He has become a moron and lost his capacity to think.

In a food processing industry a worm is used in 316 grade of stainless steel. Now this is being imported from Germany to be assembled here. Oflate an attempt has been made to buy a bar stock of 316 and then machine. Instead I provided a solution of casting the worm with some stock for machining.

They are very apprehensive to use as the principals have not agreed.with such an indifferent attitude it is sad our industries are closing down .

I personally cannot tolerate such slackness and I give my opinion strongly.

 

[electricpete]

I didn't get the whole gist of what is said. By and large I don't care what happens to engineering profession as long as I still have a job. If less new engineers come in, the better... more jobs for me.

 

[GregLocock]

I agree with electricpete, the fewer new engineers there are, the better for them, and us. Up to a point anyway.

I must apologise to Cyril, the three countries I found data for support his assertion that engineering graduate numbers were falling. In the UK engineering graduate numbers have dropped by about 10% in 5 years, which has been blamed on the increased cost of engineering tuition.

In the USA things look worse:

Bachelor degrees in engineering in 2001 were 65,195, down from 71,386 in 1988, an 8.6 percent drop. (2)
For the same time period, electrical engineering degrees declined 47 percent, from 24,367 to 12,929. (2)
Only 18 percent of American high school students were proficient in science in 2000. (1)
Approximately 25 percent of all freshmen engineering students need remedial math. (1)
Last year, 46 percent of Chinese students graduated with engineering degrees. In the US, that number was 5 percent. (1)
Europe graduates three times as many engineering students as the US, Asia five times as many. (1)
Less than two percent of U.S. high school graduates will earn an engineering degree. (1)
In 2001, almost 60 percent of those receiving Ph.D.s in Electrical Engineering were foreign born. (2)

All taken from

http://www.ti.com/corp/docs/press/company/2003/c03033.shtml

not exactly an unbiased source, but the numbers are probably OK.

On the other hand Australian engineering degree starts have remained more or less constant over the past 5 years, although I'm not too sure if that means that the number of graduates was constant. Bafflingly the percentage of graduates who find jobs also remains constant, which rather puts the kibosh on the IEAust's argument that we face an engineering skills shortage. (It has to be said that the culture over here is to avoid training someone up, it is much cheaper and more effective to recruit a trained guy from overseas)



Cheers

Greg Locock

 

[FrenchCAD]

"I must apologise to Cyril"

lol no, you don't need to

Cyril Guichard
Mechanical Engineer

 

[pablo02]

GregLocock: As far as I am concerned, TI is also part of the problem (or at least used to be) -- in May/June of 1973 they hired 500 engineers out of school -- made a big production out of the deal; then quietly laid off (as I recall) 300 to 400 of them in and around September... apparently since the prior hiring periods had more slots than people, they apparently decided to flood their staffs and then pick whom they wanted to keep and let the others go -- consequently, the fall of '73 was another slim year for jobs (in part due to the economy, in part due to TI, IMHO)... I think TI went several semesters before another graduating engineer signed up for an interview (at my alma mater)...

 

[leanne]

The business at TI is cyclical & has always been - most of the layoffs have historically been in then semiconductor division.

TI was known for years as the Training Institute (great having TI on a engineer's resume) or Tiny Income (because engineers could almost always make a higher salary elsewhere). TI has worked at changing this image. Obviously, some of us have long memories.

I cannot speak for 1973 since I was not in the work force at that time, but I recall during that period the economy was very difficult. My dad worked three jobs to support his family during that period.