NMiTE is holding a public event on Wed 23 May 18:30 aimed at explaining what's happening with the future engineering university. FREE to attend but booking required: http://www.your-uni.eventbrite.co.uk/
NMiTE have a good partner in Olin College of Engineeringwhich was itself only established in 1997 and has built a solid reputation in just a couple of decades. A recent MIT studyhas named Olin as a top leader in engineering education globally. The “Global state of the art in engineering education”report is a global review of cutting-edge practice in engineering education. The report describes successful innovation in engineering education as well as some of its opportunities and challenges. For example, the challenge of delivering student-centered active learning to large student cohorts, the siloed monodisciplinary structure of many engineering schools, and faculty appointment and promotion systems that are not perceived as rewarding teaching achievement and the benefits of user-centered design, technology-driven entrepreneurship, active project-based learning and a focus on rigor in the engineering fundamentals.
It was perhaps unfortunate that the previous thread you started in this topic was locked after it veered off-topic and some contributions overstepped the bounds of a reasonable discussion. I took your initial intent to be on of drawing attention to this new venture. I thought that there was a valuable constructive dialogue to be had about what the “New Model” was relative to the “Old” and have made contributions in other threads such as one recently about school in which I highlighted the issue of mathematics and some research about its relevance to experienced engineers. I also drew attention to another new undergraduate programme that was accelerated rather than slowed by leveraging the work-based learning of employed students. http://courses.wlv.ac.uk/course.asp?code=MA001U31UVD. I’m also reposting the link to the conference for the benefit of anyone who missed it before http://epc.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/New-Approaches-Conference-Proceedings-book-final.pdf .
To some extent the “traditional” academic model, involving selection by school examination results and 3-4 years as a full-time undergraduate isn’t ideally optimised. Perhaps the most fundamental question is; should this period be an extension of education in preparation for later “professional” work, or “working backwards” from the skills and attributes required in employment, a period of “professional learning and development”.
In the UK, the emphasis of universities has mostly been on education, conducted at relatively low intensity (short hours, long holidays) until recent years, at a modest cost to participants by public subsidy. Some 1960s universities (Aston and Loughborough come immediately to mind) focussed this model more on industry needs and “technology”. Polytechnics like Wolverhampton served local industries in particular, or in some cases were national centres of excellence, like London South Bank as a “National College” (for HVAC).
These 1960’s and post 1992 universities often retain a strong vocational focus and flexible delivery programmes including for those already in employment such as experienced mid-career professionals. However there has also been a drift towards the “traditional academic model”, understandably perhaps seeking higher places in various league tables and competitive advantage in the market for undergraduate and post-graduate students. Much good has actually been created by these successful “businesses”, including employment, local regeneration and a significant contribution to national GDP. I hope that NMiTE offers similar benefits to its home city and beyond.
An unfortunate side-effect of changes since the 1990s seems to have been that many employers of engineers and technicians developed rather unrealistic expectations of finding “job-ready” graduates. Those employers (such as major blue-chips) who have traditionally focussed on selecting the “highest potential” graduates just have more choice, inevitably leaving many good graduates disappointed or even disillusioned. Therefore there is quite a high “wastage rate”, or “inefficiency” in Return on Investment terms.
Briefly perusing the NMiTE proposition, I note many aspects that I would warm to and an enthusiasm to engage with employers. However, the employability of graduates would for me be the ultimate test of success. I didn’t pick up on an intent to partner with employers in the context of delivering an undergraduate apprenticeship, which I would consider to be closest to the ideal optimum with respect to vocational capability and economic “efficiency”. Nevertheless, if it provides a high quality accelerated preparation for its students to build engineering and technology careers, then clearly this is a desirable outcome. I can only admire those who have developed this new institution and I wish them success.
Just a small caveat on the above, I do have concerns about universities focusing too much on producing "employment ready" graduates. This could - if taken to extreme - result in graduates that are fantastic for their first 1-2 years in work, and in particular in delivering what the companies are already doing, but don't have the new knowledge to excel 3-5 years into their career, or to take their employer in new directions.
As I mentioned in (I think) the previous closed thread, one of the issues that arose from this that seriously concerned me was when a government spokesperson spoke of "a university that would train the next generation of engineers". Universities should give an environment for encouraging enquiring minds to enquire further, training is a separate and equally important area of education.
Our profession (in the UK) is very strange, and - I think - self-harming, in that we do not recognise the need for post graduate experience to hone the application of the university experience. Medicine, accountancy, law, teaching - even architecture* - all understand this.
(* I've never understood why only civil engineers have their own profession for their design teams.)
That said, I do totally encourage work experience while at university, particularly a year in industry, it means the graduate is more likely to be socially ready for work. And I do wish universities would find a way of increasing the level of understanding of business practice and business law in their graduates - this is the sort of thing which employers won't teach*. But - to take it to an extreme - if they are coming out trained in (say) soldering or welding then I think that is a waste of the university experience, there are much better environments - including in employment - to learn those skills.
(* Sadly decades of experience shows that undergrad engineers will go to extreme lengths to avoid those subjects. Mea Culpa. Then a few years later they complain when business graduates get the manager jobs )
In brief, I see a responsibility on both sides of the fence here. Including for employers to stop being snobbish, and accept that if for a particular role they need FE (rather than HE) trained engineers then that's who they should recruit.
Final thought has just occurred to me: I guess it's still true - it certainly was a few years ago - that engineering graduates with 1st class degrees were being vacuumed up by the finance industry. If they weren't "employer ready" for engineering, they certainly weren't for finance which they would have received no education in at all. However that industry took the approach "these are bright highly numerate young people, we can train them in our industry specific skills". I am no great fan of the finance industry en masse, but it is huge shame if they show far more faith in and understanding of our discipline's graduates than we do.
From my experience and observations, companies want to hire work-ready engineers and technicians. They prefer to hire someone who can hit the ground running.
If they can't find such candidates locally they import candidates from other locations including other countries to supplement the need for the experienced workforce,
As for new knowledge to excel 3-5 years into their career, it's a valid point. And can be taken into the account in continues development.
This can be done by engineers doing all the studying on their own or sponsored by employers who usually offer tuition assistance in some form.
Obviously registered Engineers and Technicians will have their CPD requirements and diversified with academic and professional courses.
Masters level education can be used for CEng registration for the engineers who are working on their UK-SPEC - compliance for registration.
This can help the engineers to be ready for changes that will add new knowledge to excel 3-5 years into their career.
The far worse situation if newly graduated engineers cant find employment and getting out of the profession altogether.
A good childhood friend with Bachelors and Mater's degree in Aeronautical Engineering from the University of Maryland, after years of not being able to secure employment in that field, is now a DBA working in IT. In his case, it turned out to be not bad as he is able to honourably provide for his family.
The advanced education is a plus, but he is working alongside persons who specialized in DBA professional training and certification.
His skills are needed and serving him well into his mid 50's. Unlike some space Engineers who are in his age and now working as security guards or taxi drivers. But yes Robert a neighbour, was able to transform into college instructor.
I partially agree with you. Employers do prefer to employ someone who can hit the ground running, but smarter employers will go for a mix of employees and include some graduates who may need some training to fit the bill but will be more effective (and may be more loyal) in the long run than the former. Unfortunately the 'smarter' employers are few and far between, but when you find them you normally find that they are in it for the long term and probably run graduate training schemes such as my old employer (definitely in it for the long term - when they started, America was still a British colony!)
On a different issue, I note the comment about 'Masters level education can be used for CEng registration' but I would take a slightly different viewpoint. Masters level education is not what differentiates CEng, but rather the person who has the competence/ability to achieve CEng is likely to drive themselves to achieve and in the process is more likely to progress to Masters level. Just progressing to Masters level is not, of itself, and indication of CEng capability. In fact, as has been stated on numberous threads, is not a pre-requisite as there are other ways to achieve and demonstrate the underpinning knowledge and understanding. It is just that a Masters simplifies the evidence and therefore the process. I have probably not stated this as clearly as I should, but I hope you see the distinction.
As for new knowledge to excel 3-5 years into their career, it's a valid point. And can be taken into the account in continues development.
This can be done by engineers doing all the studying on their own or sponsored by employers who usually offer tuition assistance in some form.
Hi Moshe,
I'd agree that for some people this can be a good way forward. Actually, for completely different reasons (I think I said this elsewhere on these forums recently) I think it would be much better if university education took place between the ages of perhaps 21 to 25. But in general it's extremely hard for people to make a clear three year "breathing space" at any time except after immediately leaving school - this seems to be true worldwide. So - again personally - my feeling is that the best use of this time is not to give students an idea of what they could do tomorrow, but rather what they could do for the day after tomorrow - and the rest of their life after that. They may not get another chance.
I suspect that in the UK we will see a push towards short, day or block release, engineering degrees which will be highly efficient; but as someone who is passionate about the whole university experience I think this would be very unfortunate.
Although I did achieve my Master's whilst working very much full time (and coping with teenage children going through their exams at the same time) I would have got a lot more out of it if I could have taken the time of work to carry it out in a proper academic environment. But there was no way that my company - who were very generous regarding sponsoring education and training and paid for my part time Masters - could have afforded to support that.
I think your post does accurately reflect the view and approach of the industry, personally I think it does not give us the best possible engineering practice. I really like the approach that the other professions have taken - for hundreds of years (not that that is necessarily a recommendation!) - to let the seeds germinate strongly in university and then train them up the wall when they enter the garden. (For sub-equator readers, spring's coming in the Northern hemisphere!)
Yes, many professions require masters degree level of education. The Professional Engineer in the USA I think by 2020 will also upgrade from BS to MS or MS level education for the academic requirement so the basic engineering credential would become a master’s degree – at least for those who seek a professional license.
The argument is that young engineers "don’t have the depth of knowledge we really need,"
Today’s bachelor’s degrees require 120 credit hours, a number reflecting a steady decline from the 150 expected from graduates a century ago. Meanwhile, technology has been advancing at a supersonic pace.
"It’s in the public’s interest," former Lockheed Martin Chairman and CEO Norman Augustine has said, "that we make the master’s degree the basic degree" of the profession.
The Engineering Deans Council, a leadership body under the auspices of the American Society for Engineering Education, disagrees that the move is warranted and is concerned that it could interfere with the accreditation process and “adversely affect interest” among students considering an engineering career.
For students, the change would mean a higher cost. Would it produce a favourable return? The National Council of Examiners for Engineering and Surveying, which helps state licensing boards carry out their duties, has changed its model law to require a master’s or an equivalent 30 credits – at least half in engineering and half in other subjects including business, communications, contract law and quality control – with a target effective date of 2020. Nonetheless, states would need to pass the law for it to take effect.
Nursing (midwife) in the US has interesting progression.
Registered Nurse - RN minimum to become licensed RN requires an Associate ( 2years) degree
RN with AS degree. 2 years + clinical
RN with BSN degree - 4 years + clinical
RN with MSN degree - 6 years + clinical
And Nurse Practitioner - 7 years of education
They are all RN's but with different level of academic education.
Apologies, maybe I didn't express myself clearly, I think you may have misunderstood my post. I'm not concerned about Bachelor's / Master's degree differentiation. It's more that (your example above is a good one) we don't have the "+ clinical" part of the development to become employable. No-one expects a medical, legal etc graduate to be employable without further on-the-job training.
Personally I like the old role of Master's degrees as entries to academic research rather than the slightly strange role they have developed now - I can't really see the value of MEng degrees. But maybe I'm old fashioned.
Now, the "don’t have the depth of knowledge we really need" argument is interesting. Who knows if this is true or false. But a little story: until recently I used to sit on two University / Industry liaison panels for a particular university, which were intended precisely to help the University address these types of concerns, basically to make sure its courses covered the right area. However there were two problems:
Persuading anyone from industry to take part, and
Persuading many university staff to take part.
So we would end up with panels of the same faces every time, including perhaps five people from industry. They would (mostly) argue that they wanted graduates trained in the skills for their specific industries. Who knows how representative these views were, I suspect (and the university staff I worked with also suspected) they were not very representative at all.
This is hugely important, I think we discussed this at some length in the old thread, universities and industry need to work together en masse in each country to work out what knowledge is needed in engineers five years after graduation and then work out how to get them there. It's not easy. For example, some years ago there was a shortage of switch mode power supply designers. To get a good SMPS designer takes strong underpinning knowledge in electronic and electromagnetic principles - from a degree - followed by experience from previous SMPS designers. A university could spend three years teaching an graduate to be an SMPS designer and nothing else, which I'm sure some employers would like, what do they then do when that technology becomes obsolete?
But whether there's a fundamental point that graduates have overall less knowledge (rather than the wrong knowledge) - I personally think a bit of rose tinted glasses comes in here, old engineers forgetting how little they knew when they graduated. Regarding credit hours (classroom hours in a year), this is a much shouted about figure - parents in the UK (particularly, in my experience, those from a non-university background themselves) get very excited about "contact time" - or rather the lack of it. So let's look at Oxford and Cambridge degrees. My understanding - and please someone correct me if I'm wrong - is that traditionally the amount of "contact time" in these has been absolutely minimal. So why have they long been considered world class? Because the undergrad is thrown into an environment with some of the highest intellects in their field around, and it's up to them to develop from that intellect and knowledge. If they can do that, they are going to be really, really strong graduates. I'll be honest, I'd have failed in that environment at the age of 18 - although I'd love to do it now! It's not the credit hours / contact hours, it's what is available to the student and what they do with it.
Don't get me wrong, there is lots I could and do criticise universities for! But for me personally it tends to be mostly because they're trying to pander to short term financial needs too much rather than too little.
By the way, off topic really, but my personal perspective on 3 year vs 4 year degrees is my daughter has just finished a 4 year degree and my son is half way through one. For my daughter it was because it was clear early on that she wanted to go into academic (scientific) research, so an integrated Master's looked to give her the best chance for this - the final year was starting to learn the principles of academic research. My son, who is doing an arts / humanities degree, signed up for a 4 year so that he could get a year abroad, hopefully should be off to Prague University next year, which I'm sure will pay back hugely later in life in terms of life experience (certainly did for my wife how studied modern languages with a year abroad). Now, if either of them had decided to go into engineering I would equally have suggested they go for a 4 year course - but with year 3 being a year in industry. Anyway, I'm delighted that they've been really enjoying themselves - and getting fantastic experiences - while they can. And you can survive for four years without money as long as no-one around you has any either! 45 years of doing the 9-5 is quite enough.
It was perhaps unfortunate that the previous thread you started in this topic was locked after it veered off-topic and some contributions overstepped the bounds of a reasonable discussion. I took your initial intent to be on of drawing attention to this new venture. I thought that there was a valuable constructive dialogue to be had about what the “New Model” was relative to the “Old”
Roy, I thank you for your reply - and accurate interpretation of my original intent for posting. Truth be told. I am fairly new at this lark (posting on IET forums) and simply aim to inform and stimulate positive discussion (and in this specific instance, somewhat shamelessly promote the city of my residence).
That my posts have done this (so far) is brilliant, and all things considered, have stimulated plenty of discussion (I am eternally surprised!). In the process, I have learned a great deal as a time-served trade apprentice (with no sign of a degree or university education!) and relatively recent IET member and CEng registrant, and enjoy reading and digesting the accumulated wisdom of the many fine contributors. Long may that continue!
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