Educating the Engineer of 2020: Adapting Engineering Education to the New Century In a 1998 study, fully 98 percent of students switching from engineering to another major cited poor teaching as a major reason for their departure The value of engineering education | Enter Venture They simply aren’t there to engage you in the content, and the textbooks certainly don’t help. I’m not sure if it’s by design or due to the general ineptitude of most engineering professors, but engineering tends to be really poorly taught. Educating teachers | ASEE Prism | Find Articles at BNET *Practically every engineering dean and department chair can tell horror stories detailing massive student complaints about poor teaching.
Don Dodge on The Next Big Thing: 50% of US engineering students dropout - Why? The second most common complaint is poor quality teachers that are more interested in their own research than in teaching undergraduate students. A quote from the weblink that you yourself posted said as much: Well, first of all, the reality is that they don't actually teach any principles at all.
They would rather leave that to schools like DeVry. They don't view themselves as training students for the workforce. Īs to your broader point, some US professors I've spoken to on this subject feel it's their responsibility to teach principles that can be applied in many ways (academia, research, industry, entrepreneurship, and so forth). After all, like I said, most undergrad engineering students will not become academics. What I question is whether such people ought to be teaching undergrads. Granted, I have no problem with those who just want to be researchers. But the truth is, most engineering professors are pure academic researchers who don't know industry and don't WANT to know industry. Hence, you can indeed have professors who are knowledgeable about what is happening in industry, either because they used to work there, or because they've started their own companies or engage in active consulting for industry. RSA was acquired by EMC 2 years ago for over $2 billion. The initials RSA in the company RSA Security stood for the last names of the 3 cofounders, all of whom were (and still are) current engineering professors: Ron Rivest at MIT, Adi Shamir of the Weizman Institute of Israel, and Leonard Adelman of USC. His personal net worth was about $1.8 billion in 2007 according to Fortune Magazine. For example, Amar Bose, while a professor of EECS at MIT, also founded and still serves as Chairman of the Bose Corporation. Entrepreneurship may be the clearest method for this to occur. Thirdly, you can have profs themselves improve their knowledge of industry. Perhaps on a bit sadder note, nowadays, I am sure there are quite a few laid-off engineers who wouldn't mind teaching a course or two. It would allow them to keep their minds fresh and give them a feeling of satisfaction, and they would be able to impart knowledge they gained from their many years in industry (not to mention valuable industry connections for students who are looking for jobs). I can think of quite a few engineers (with PhD's) who had worked in industry for decades and are now retired, and probably wouldn't mind teaching an undergrad course or two for a nominal salary. If guys like Grove and D'Arbeloff could teach courses, surely other engineers could do the same.įurthermore, you may not actually have to ask anybody to leave industry, as they may have already left. Similarly, Alex D'Arbeloff, co-founder and former President of Teradyne, used to also teach a mechanical engineering course at MIT. Granted, it was a small graduate level course on semiconductor devices. While managing Intel, he was able to still teach an engineering course at Berkeley (his alma mater). Yes - THAT Andrew Grove - the former Chairman and CEO of Intel and Time Magazine's Person of the Year in 1997. Impossible? Consider the example of Andrew Grove. I am not asking necessarily for professors to leave industry jobs. Hmmm, that's asking a lot, for individuals to leave their industry jobs to become professors.
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