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EDITORIAL

More on Engineering Education A Renaissance in the Offing?

Strether Smith, Contributing Editor

In my editorial A Commentary on theState of Engineering Education, for the

July 2004 issue of this magazine I wasbrave enough to publ ish a diatribe de-

scribing my myopic view of the state ofdirty-hands engineering education. Inthat editorial, I expressed the opinionthat practical engineering had largelydisappeared from the curriculum of mostmechanical engineering schools (on therash assumption that it had been there inthe first place). The editorial includedcomments from an industry source thatagreed with me and an opposing argu-ment from a representative of academiathat did not. The editorial requested feed-

back, and that is certainly what it pro-duced: A rebuttal editorial (Oct 04) from Rob-

ert Bittle at TCU (Texas Christian Uni-versity) describes the ABET (Accredi-tation Board for Engineering and Tech-nology) and its effect on engineeringschools with specific reference to theTCU program. The ABET is the recog-nized accreditor for college and univer-sity programs in applied science, com-puting, engineering and technology.

Three rebuttal editorials from PeterAvitabile describe the program at theUniversity of Massachusetts, Lowell,and discuss the trials and tribulationsof engineering education in general(May, Jun & Jul 05.

More than 30 messages from a widevariety of respondents.

An invitation to discuss the matter asthe keynote speaker at the VibrationInstitute 2005 National TechnicalTraining Symposium.I will leave it to the reader to review the

excellent editorials by Professors Bittleand Avitabile. They describe the pro-grams that are available at their schoolsthat are designed to answer the criticismsin my original rant. The following is adiscussion of my discourse with a lot offolks that care and my updated view ofthe situation.

I have arbitrarily broken down the

messages into three categories: Old engineering professionals Cod-

gers Younger engineering professionals

Youngsters Engineering school professors Educa-

tors

The Codgers almost universally agreedwith the premise of the original editorial.One particularly vehement response

came from one author who requestedanonymity:

Hands-on courses have essentially dis-

appeared or have become so watereddown (with canned labs) that they areineffective. It is almost impossible to hirea new graduate that has any ability toconduct a meaningful experiment. Theydont know what questions experimentscan answer, dont know how to define anappropriate experiment, dont know whatdiagnostics will be useful, dont knowhow to apply the diagnostics, dont knowhow to interpret the data, dont know howto do an error analysis to estimate errorlimits, dont know what instrumentationto use and what limitations are built indue to instrumentation choices and have

no idea what conclusions to draw fromthe experiment. They cant do hand cal-culations to estimate results or to verifythe order-of-magnitude answers fromtheir computer programs. They do not

have an appreciation for whatcan andcantbe calculated and therefore cannotmake appropriate comparisons between

experiments and computer-generatednumbers. Finally, they have no ability towrite about the expected results of an ex-

periment.

Codgers that did not agree completelywith me said that mostschools do notproduce dirty-hands engineers. Severaldiscussed hiring practices that theythought separated the wheat from thechaff.

There was also a common theme thatran through the Youngsters responses.All considered themselves to be dirty-hands types, but none gave much creditto their college education. The recurringtheme was that their main practical expe-rience came from playing with cars and/or motorcycles and that their educationreinforced that practical knowledge withtheory and further examples. From EdMilich came a typical response:

I personally spent many hours workingon motorcycles and cars while in school,

and my hands-on knowledge of motor-cycle and automotive mechanics servedme invaluably in my analytical educa-

tion. Conversely, my classroom educationdeepened my understanding of practicalmechanics such as tuning engines.

One can argue that any students un-derstanding of both hands-on and ana-lytical engineering is limited only by their

education, talents, and curiosity. In anycase, I can unequivocally state that re-cent university-trained engineeringgraduates have had a tremendous oppor-

tunity to develop their practical dirty-hands skills at the same time that theylearned the fundamentals of analyticalengineering. It is the responsibility ofeach engineer to make the most of theseopportunities.

A critical factor is found in Milichslast sentence. Its converse is a philo-sophical problem that we all hear regu-larly.All of the youngsters agreed thattheir classmates who did not bring dirtyhands to the table left equally clean.

In addition to the editorials, there wereseveral responses from Educators that

offer significant hope. Michel Louge fromCornell writes:

When Dean Taylor, teamed up with AlGeorge to create M&AE 225 MechanicalSynthesis back in themid 1990s, theirobjective was torejuvenate the teachingof mechanical engineering with real-lifedesign situations. In that course, studentslearn team dynamics, computer-aideddesign, planning, benchmarking, reverseengineering, rapid prototyping and yes they also all learn to use lathes, millingmachines and welding safely.

Here we have what I think is a descrip-tion of the critical change that is happen-ing in engineering education. Recall thatmy original editorial was prompted bywhat I saw as a retreat from practical en-gineering instruction at Cornell in the1960s. Louges response indicates thatthe Cornell faculty came to the same con-clusion 30 years later and decided to dosomething about it.

At about the same time, the program atTCU described in Robert Bittles editorialand Pat Walters contribution to my origi-nal piece was started. Other schools wereexperiencing the same renaissance dur-ing that period. The ABET program, dis-

cussed by Professor Bittle, also came onthe scene about that time. My conclusionis that some colleges and universitieshave realized that there is a problem andhave chosen to do something about it.

Of course, what to do is not obvious.There have been huge advances in tech-nology since the 1960s, and subject mat-ter must be adjusted accordingly. JosephPrahl from the Case School of Engineer-ing says:

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cerns. The machines were demonstratedand, of course, only good practices weredisplayed. The students did not have achance to ruin a tool or a part because ofimpatience prompting too deep a cut.This is not an acceptable situation andthese schools should either solve the li-ability problem or stop pretending that

they are teaching dirty-hands principles.So, finally we are to my bottom line.

My conclusion is that there definitely arecolleges and universities that do offerpractical, hands-on, education programs.However, many do not. The challenge tothose of us that hire graduates or want tohelp young people get an education inmechanical regimens is to find schoolsand programs that produce the type ofgraduate that we want.

Responses to my request for feedbackproduced the following short list ofschools that offer a mix of high-qualityacademic and dirty-hands experience.

These schools were recommended bygraduates or demonstrated their capabili-ties by appropriate responses. In alpha-

betical order, they are: Carnegie Mellon Cornell Cal Poly Michigan State University Michigan Tech Texas Christian University (TCU) University of Massachusetts Lowell University of Missouri-Rolla

I am sure that there are many moreschools that should qualify for this hon-ored list. Id like to publish another edi-torial in a year or so and would hope itincludes a comprehensive list of schoolsthat we should be contacting to hire theirgraduates or that we should be encourag-ing student engineers to attend. Pleasecontact me if you would like to nominateothers or have additional comments.

Thanks to all of you who responded tothe original editorial. I hope that it wasobvious that my long-term intention wasto show my premise was wrong. Al-though the jury is still out on most engi-neering schools, the situation is betterthan I had thought.

There is always a concern over howmuch to shift the curriculum away fromdrafting, free-hand sketching and letter-ing, wood shop, model shop, foundry ormachine shop to make room in four years

for new industrial ly rel evant develop-ments, such as solid modeling, rapid

prototyping, computer-aided design and

manufacturing, not to mention new con-ceptual developments such as, micro-electro-mechanical systems, nanotech-nology and modern numerical methodsand codes such as MATLAB andMATHE-MATICA.

The fact is, there are many things thatused to occupy immense amounts of timein past engineering curricula that are no

longer needed or appropriate. We do nothave to spend inordinate amounts of timelearning to use log and trig tables, prac-

ticing how to interpolate to get accurateanswers. This does not mean that weshould not understand logs and expo-

nents fundamentally, but we do not re-quire the application of the tables theway we used to. We can apply our time

to more worthy pursuits. Students todaydo not need to know how to use a sliderule or a lettering set or mechanical draw-ing instrument. It simply is not necessary.

In my original editorial, I specificallylamented the passing of the foundry classat Cornell. I wrote a good foundation insand casting is a good start toward under-standing the difference between a goodand bad shock response spectrum. Thismay be true but is obviously a stretch.Some topics have to go to make room fornew things.

There has been an obvious (and neces-sary) trend toward a more analytical cur-riculum in all schools. The computer,

barely a concept when I was in college,has become our central tool, regardless ofwhether we are in analytical or experi-mental regimens. Fortunately, manyschools have instituted, or held on to,practical mechanical programs of severaltypes.

I was fortunate to visit TCU and havePat Walter give me a quick tour of theirfacilities. I discussed their industry-spon-sored program with him and several of

the students. This program requires thesenior class (28 students) to produce a

product that is contracted by a request-ing organization. That years project,sponsored by PCB, was to design and

build a calibration system to characterizeaccelerometers in the 0.05 to 5 Hz fre-quency range. No simple job, and cer-tainly one that had not been done before.The task included negotiation of specifi-

cations with the customer, design, con-struction, proof of performance, cost ac-counting and control, documentation,and sell-off to the end user. All of theproject responsibility fell on the shoul-ders of the participants. Participation inthis program is required for graduation.

Many schools offer an alternative ap-proach to dirty-hands experience. Theseoptional extracurricular programs takeadvantage of competitions sponsored bya variety of industry and government or-ganizations. Examples include FormulaSAE, the Great Moonbuggy Race anda variety of autonomous-vehicle pro-

grams such as the DARPA Grand Chal-lenge. These competitions provide realwrench-turning experience under high-stress (industry-emulating) conditions.These programs are terrific. The onlyproblem is that they are optional. If weare hiring graduates, we should look forones that have participated.

However, an issue that was disturbingto me arose in the DARPA Grand Chal-lenge. Although it was an open competi-tion, many of the teams were from aca-demic institutions. In fact, the first threefinishers were from schools. However,only one of these teams (that entered twocars that came in 2nd and 3rd) had sig-nificant student participation. It was ob-vious that their approach was to be alearning experience for the team mem-

bers. Their school made the honor rolethat will be found at the end of this edi-torial. The winner did not.

There is a side issue that deserves com-ment. In the original editorial I askedwhether mechanical engineering stu-dents are required to have run a lathe andmilling machine. In this case, I mean areal manually controlled machine, notthe CNC (computer numerical control)variety. Most of the schools that I con-tacted had these machines but, in many

cases, the students are not allowed tooperate them because of liability con-

The author may be contacted at: strether.smith@ comcast.net.