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Fully Endowed FW Olin College of Engineering Opens
olin01 writes "USA Today has a story on the Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering, which opens this Friday to its freshman class. Olin's goal is to graduate students who are "renaissance engineers," meaning that not only do the have the technical knowledge and skills but also a strong understanding of their context through studies in arts, humanities, social science, and entrepreneurship. This past year, 30 "pre-freshman" worked with faculty, staff, and administration to create the college's curriculum and student live programs. Olin also gives a full tuition scholarship to all admitted students, more information on their website."
One that I've seen... well 2 actually.
:)
#1: Engineers don't take any other courses (from what I've been seeing) besides the engineering courses. No history, humanities, fine arts, etc. It makes for a more well-balanced person. It should be required.
I do agree that everyone should have a balanced education. But let me sound off for a moment on one of my pet peeves: EVERYONE should have a balanced education, not just those in the sciences or engineering! It continually annoys me that "geeks" are made to feel sheepish about any lack of "breadth" they may have, while those in the humanities are free to boast about their complete lack of knowledge of science and mathematics, apparently feeling no shame about it.
The idea of a liberal arts education is often presented as being the opposite of an engineering or scientific education, but let's just review what the seven liberal arts actually were, shall we? Grammar, Rhetoric, Logic, Arithmetic, Geometry, Music, and Astronomy. Science and math were strongly represented; enough said.
The next time someone accuses you of lacking breadth, don't get all hangdog about it. Instead, ask them if they can integrate, or if they know how the force of gravitational attraction varies with distance. If not, ask them why not.
I would have loved a course like this. But, I still think it may be solving the wrong problem. My experience is that there are fewer engineers who could do with a dose of liberal arts (though there are plenty) than there are liberal arts students who desperately need at least some basic grounding in science and math.
I have met countless Americans with liberal arts backgrounds who have tremendously difficulty dealing with even the most basic concepts of logic, reasoning, argument and math. This can seriously damage your career.
There are relatively few engineers who would admit with pride that they don't read books or go see films. There are plenty of liberal artists who seem only too happy to flaunt their ignorance of basic math and science.
So I like this course a lot, but I'd rather see something working in the other direction.
Sailing over the event horizon
UofT is an excellent school. But for engineering all Canadian schools (that offer engineering, 40+) are good. Due to the strict accreditation standards, from a high level all the schools are very similar. And believe it or not are right up there with the best from the USA. There is a big "however." Each school does somethings better: have different programs, better teachers/funding for field X, etc. Personally I prefer the smaller class size you will find at the smaller Unis. My graduateing year had 300 students across all fields.
For those considering Engineering in Canada, do not get too hung up on which school is best for you. It is good to find a school that you will like, but not worth stressing over. In the end, regardless of where you go, the best the profs can hope to achieve is to expose you to enough topics that you will know enough to find and read the correct book. All the Canadian schools achieve this goal.
The anti-humanities yahoos produced by most computer science "curricula" are proud of their ignorance of history, literature, and the proper usage of their native language. This sickens me.
I should also add that a lot of the computer geeks I know are profoundly ignorant of science and of mathematics, as well. The quality of various universities' computer science programs differ widely, of course, but most of them impose much less stringent math and science requirements than (say) the physics or chemistry curricula. I worked with people at software companies who could barely manage single-variable algebra, sweated over the simplest application of trigonometry, and of course knew no calculus. The attitude seemed to me, "Hell, I'll just grab the code out of _Numerical Methods_ or wherever."
I think a lot of computer geeks think they know science because they've picked up a vague smattering of facts from popular science articles and publications. But ask your average geek how Millikan determined the charge on the electron, or how the experiment worked which first determined (with some certainty) that it was nucleic acids and not proteins which transmitted genetic information, and watch him sweat and run to Google for the answer.
C. S. Lewis, more than fifty years ago, wrote of the sort of education that is "neither Classical nor Scientific, merely Modern". Computer science is the apotheosis of this.
hyacinthus.