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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."
#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.
#2: From the engineering programs I've seen lately, it seems as though they're shoving a bunch of formulae at the students and are saying "Here, memorize these." without explaining/proving how/why they work. That is vital. The engineers being churned out now are book smart, cannot apply their knowledge, and do not know where their "knowledge" comes from.
This is why I switched to physics. Generally the same material, except more in depth/proven/etc.
At my BS school, they cut optics out of the physics classes because "Engineers don't need that". What's up with that?
Mike
Mmmm......sacrelicious.
Can't get to the site, but it sounds exactly like the program I graduated from. I was in the first graduating class, and I have to say if it wasn't for this program I would have never finished my engineering education.
The Engineering and Society program at McMaster is a 5 year program instead of the usual 4 for a standard engineering degree. You still "belong" to a particular branch of engineering (chemical in my case), but you spread the technical portion of your education over the entire 5 years, freeing up time for other areas of study. I studied anthropology and philosophy outside of engineering, as well as a number of targetted Engineering and Society courses on social impacts of technology, environmental issues, history of technology, etc. And these were far from bird courses, critical thought was stressed and the work load was high. Math and physics were for the most part easy for me, defending my arguments critically was hard. But it is the skill I took from university that I am most proud of.
For me, it was the best education I could have had. I'm good at the technical part, and always wanted to have a career in engineering. But I always had in mind that sometimes technology doesn't always make the world a better place. I think that as engineers, we need to have a broader world view of how what we do affects the world around us. Both the human societies and environment. Engineering education requires a huge amount of content, and in order to pack it all into 4 years, there isn't much room for anything else.
I think that anyone looking to get into engineering should look closely at programs like this, the extra year may seem like a lot now but the rewards in the end may far outweigh it.
Laugh while you can, monkey boy!
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
Olin College Engineers are FULLY ENDOWED
She sat at the window watching the evening invade the avenue.
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.