The Emerging Engineering Professional

Educating the emerging engineering professional is a broadly-defined mission whose sphere of influence extends beyond the technical and scientific aspects, whether they be foundational underpinnings or the upper division specializations. The engineering professional must also develop:

• The ability to effectively communicate in written and oral forms;
• A sense of business acumen, practices, and awareness -- this includes some understanding of marketing, economics, and organizational management; their interplay among themselves and with the engineering process;
• An understanding for, and work ethic for leadership in the workplace; individual and team contributions, sensitivity to customer needs, their incorporation into the engineering and engineering management process, and commitment to the concepts of total quality management;
• A sense of professional ethical and legal responsibilities;
• An appreciation of the joy of learning and of the need for lifelong learning;
• An appreciation for intellectual breadth to be not only an engineering leader but a well versed and updated participant in societal activities. To reach this requires an appreciation for the humanities, arts, politics, law and business beyond that which is technically or scientifically targeted.

The interplay of the four major foci is a beginning through which to address this technical and non-technical breadth.

Delivering an educational experience that incorporates these objectives and tools requires a change in the pedagogical culture from a program that is lecture driven and teacher centered to one that is process driven and student centered. Inherent in this educational process is to better understand how we learn as well as how we teach. In the longer term these collective efforts push the envelope of the institutional culture to alter and enhance the manner in which it initiates and embraces systematic institutional change.