lvron@earth.lerc.nasa.gov (Ronald E. Graham) (07/21/90)
This posting is in response to requests from Ian Hawthorn and Richard Miller, contributors to misc.education, that some discussion be carried out on the subject of problems in engineering education, and how they relate to (or, how they differ from) problems in any other educational realm. Their point (and I think it's valid) is that discussion outside of e-mail will better measure the interest in the proposed group (talk.engineering.education was the original title, but look for that to be changed before a call for votes) than e-mail alone. Let me kick off the discussion by describing a couple of problems I believe we have at the NASA Lewis Research Center that have piqued my personal interest in this subject: (1) the way things work; and (2) communications skills. Regarding (1): Russell Lawrence, one of the respondents to the call for discussion, stated: "I've met dozens of people who were able to perform intricate tasks by means of complex symbols or procedures while having no understanding whatsoever of the underlying problem." This is a good summary. We sometimes come out of school knowing how to use the book, especially if the book has the equations highlighted or boxed or listed in an Appendix, but we don't understand the physics of the problem. My mother continually is on my case for being a mechanical engineer who can't fix his own car. In my work area, a new hire is limited as to what s/he can accomplish on the job until some sense of the way the thing that is in question (generally a rocket, satellite, or the Space Station Freedom) works. But even that knowledge is based on the way simpler mechanisms work, and we sometimes have a limited understanding of that as well. Regarding (2): The Government continually states in its job descriptions that it is looking for personnel with "good oral and written communications skills". Where do you get these skills, in an engineering curriculum? In my own background, I was required two quarters of English and one of Speech as an undergraduate, and that wasn't enough to prepare me for the amount of, and the varied nature of, the communications I am expected to provide as part of my day-to-day duties. (About 60 to 75 percent of my job is reports, memos, bean-counting, meetings, phone calls, and teaching.) This problem is aggravated by the influx of internationals in the job-force. The internationals are great engineers, but, depending on the country of origin and on the length of stay in the USA, they may be simply terrible at communication. We have managers who hire internationals (they are easier to hire than white Americans), and then, faced with a communication gap that takes some work to overcome, just let them go to do their own thing. Then they actually wonder why the results are not what they want. Harry, a Chinese gentleman in my area, is also frustrated at this situation. In his previous position, he tells me all he had to do was "do analysis, get result". Now he has to do all the same paper-pushing as most of the rest of us. And it takes him that much longer, because we don't understand what he is saying on the first, or second, or third, try. Now, the Government offers ample training opportunities for its employees. How are the opportunities chosen? It's every one for him/her self, in most cases. I am interested, for myself, in finding out how to remedy (1) and (2) without turning all of Lewis upside-down to do it. (The Government would never put up with it anyway.) Are these kinds of things due to shortcomings in the university educational process? Or is the Government doing something wrong? For my own situation, did I do all I could? This is the sort of thing I am interested in, at least. Others will have to spead for themselves. RG "The scientific method is holy." - M. Scott Peck