Survey Results Reveal Ways to Excite Students about Engineering

The College of Engineering sent out a survey to members of the National Academy of Engineering last fall, seeking their opinion on how best to excite young students about the field of engineering. 

The top ten suggestions were selected to receive a limited edition Drexel University emblazoned iPod.  Those top suggestions are listed below:

• I wish I knew how to convince young students to go into a career in engineering. If I could change K-12 curricula, I would place emphasis not just on science in K-12 but on the professional disciplines that transform science into products and processes that impact the daily lives of everyone. Currently students only gain some knowledge about how the natural world operates. Engineers, on the other hand, conceive of and create artifacts that previously did not exist. They then become part of the "engineered world". I think the majority of people never think of the "natural" and "built" world in this manner.  This could be the theme of a new curriculum in K-12 science. I think it would excite new entrants to engineering.

• I have 3 primary suggestions. All are particularly aimed at making engineering and computer science (I am a computer scientist) more attractive to women and/or under-represented minorities.

1) Make all courses project-oriented and team or pair-based.  For computer science, there have been studies showing that if pair-programming is used in the beginning courses, retention rates go up across the board, and go up by a huge factor for women.  For this reason, Harvard is using pairs programming for their first 2 introductory courses.  Experiments have also shown that students whose introductory courses were taught in that way have higher overall cumulative averages in computer science over their 4 years than those not taught that way.

2) Start a student chapter of ACM-W (I am the chair of ACM-W) or SWE. 
This provides women students with a community so they don't feel so isolated.  As a student at Penn's Moore School of EE many years ago, I can tell you first hand just how isolated I felt.

3) Make a definite effort to invite women and under-represented minorities to be colloquium speakers.  If you have a Distinguished Lecturer Series which highlights really outstanding people in the field, make a concerted effort to see that outstanding women and minorities are considered.  Everyone wants to see someone who is a success that looks like them!  One of the problems is that women and minorities tend to be invisible and don't come to mind when these invitations are made - make a concerted effort to change that.

• Engineering practice now needs engineers able to cope with politics and social demands and consequences.  Require humanities courses integrating engineering and its context. 

• Because of my concern over the fact that both China and India graduate many times more engineers than does the USA, I established a scholarship of the Ohio State University which will continuously sponsor each year a female engineering freshman enrollee.  Hopefully, this and similar actions will narrow the leads of China and India.

• My suggestions to increase the interest in and pursuit of engineering careers in the US include the following:
  
  Introduce a program of 'engineering' education in ElHi schools, where 'science' is currently a subject, but not 'engineering'.  Reward the creation of material and its presentation in such a program with the same enthusiasm and recognition as we currently apply to research and excellence in teaching at the university.  And include in the program participation by engineers from industry.
  
  Assure that this elementary and high school education communicates the 'social' aspects of engineering:  the social benefits (and pleasures) provided by engineering products and activities, and the social problems being mitigated and solved by engineering advances.
  
  Most importantly, convey the social environment in which engineering is accomplished: the excitement, the team spirit and camaraderie, the elements of team competition, the enormous emotional highs and satisfactions produced by successful engineering endeavors.  (Good engineers are possibly the most social of professionals, not the stereotypical antisocial analytical loners.)
  
  Some of the same thoughts apply to education at the university level.  We fail to communicate to our college students these dimensions of social satisfaction, or to prepare them with necessary social insights and skills.  Successful engineering endeavors require equal measures of technical skills, management methodology, team skills, team commitment and leadership.  Understanding and skills can be taught in these latter areas.

• Send your best teachers into high schools to give popular level talks that bring out the excitement of engineering and the role of women in computer science and engineering.  Do the same at PTA Meetings.  Set a goal of at least one popular lecture annually for all faculty.

• It’s time for leading universities to convert to a pre-engineering undergraduate program allowing more liberal arts – and to a graduate engineering degree (like Law, Medicine, Business).  Not a new idea but a good one to raise stakes of professionals and to produce more leaders of our engineering firms and in the public sector.

• Per your request, herewith are some Suggestions for "Reinvigorating Engineering Education" in the U.S.
•  "Atmospherics" [ for Motivation]:
• Psyop Campaigns to "explain" and Celebrate Engineering across-the-board, including criticality/contributions/FUTURE Possibilities enabled/executed by Engineers.
• Seriously Enhance Societal standing/evaluation/prestige of Engineers/engineering and Intellectual Pursuits in General.  U.S. Heroes are Sports and Entertainment figures, NOT Technical/intellectual folks.  U.S. has a "left-over from the Industrial Age" largely" blue-collar" culture in a white-collar age. Engineers are viewed by U.S. society as the Prototypical "Nerds" and such are ridiculed in the media etc, as opposed  to being valued.
• Establish a strategic Outlook within the Nation.  Nominal planning cycles are 1000 years in China, 140 years in Japan and 3 months in the U.S.  This "Terminally Tactical" approach has vast implications for Engineering including rapid project/employment turnover/changes and wholly insufficient investment in  Fundamental/Long Term Research.
• Establish a strong [far less cyclical] employment outlook at "Fair Pay'.  The average Financial  professional  earns some 400k/yr, Engineers are at less than a 100K.Another option is to  cut the pay of the Financial folks so the Engineers do not feel like poor cousins/leave engineering for "Greener [and often "Easier"] pastures.
• My discussions with people/engineers indicates that enrollments closely track the employment outlook and the current/rapidly accelerating "Outsourcing” of engineering tasks/jobs offshore [same-to-better quality at currently FAR LESS COST] is "informing" prospective  Engineering students regarding the REAL  outlook of the profession.  Then there is the increasing "automation" of Engineering due to the IT Revolution enablement and emerging Machine Intelligence.  To go into Engineering today requires that the student do so IN SPITE of the outlook/atmospherics" rather than because of it.
• Education  "content"
• Much of the Curriculum today is leftover from the industrial age and looks/feels "Antique".  It needs to be Seriously/widely updated with FAR more emphasis upon Systems/Multi-disciplinary approaches and Far Less upon Traditional "Stovepipes" [ Civil,  Mechanical, Electrical etc.].  ABET needs to again look at the modern/emerging practice of engineering and craft courses which are relevant to such. The practice of engineering has changed MUCH in the last 25 years and is changing rapidly/will change far more going forward.
• There are actually at least 2 categories of engineers - "Research" and  "Real". These require  different training. After Sputnik the U.S shifted  to  training research engineers and the world needs FAR MORE "Real Engineers".  The Rest of the World produces such.  Acknowledge this "difference" and craft the education processes accordingly.

• Recruit promising students for engineering while they are in junior high school with a promise of a scholarship upon high school graduation.  Also, establish collaborative innovation centers which focus on delivery of technology to involve students at an early age.

• A program in which I am involved in is one I highly recommend.  It is MESA (Math, Engineering, and Science Achievement) started for disadvantaged high schools in California, and now active, I think, in ten states.  The purpose is to encourage these kids to go on to college by competing state-wide and nationally with egg-drops, mousetrap cars, balsa bridges, etc.  Results have been phenomenal.  This year from my high school scholarships were awarded to Harvard and MIT.  Last year, two girls went to do engineering at Stanford and San Jose State.  When the students show what they can do, the parents are generally very supportive.