the missing basics: philosophical reflections on a complete engineering education

The Missing Basics:Philosophical Reflections on a Complete Engineering Education

David E. GoldbergIllinois Foundry for Innovation in Engineering EducationUniversity of Illinois at Urbana-ChampaignUrbana, IL 61801 [email protected]

© David E. Goldberg 2009

mailto:[email protected]

Engineering Education Reform in the Air

• Engineering education incomplete.• Many calls for reform.• Many lists the same: More “design,”

“people” skills, “communication.” • Faculty resist “soft” skills as not “rigorous”• Here argue that problem is in part

philosophical.• Engineering does not understand itself

well enough to properly cultivate its young: ontologically or methodologically.


Begin with the End in Mind: Senior Design

• Senior design as way to see the end.• General Engineering at UIUC

established in 1921.• Grinter report of 1955: more math

& science, less design.• UCLA conference 1962.• Ford Foundation grant 1966.• Money ran out 1971.• Industrial funding supports

thereafter.


Stephen R. Covey (b. 1932)

A Special Moment: Ready, Set, Go

• These are seniors.• Should be engineers on the

threshold.• Express preferences for projects.• Get assigned to a project: 3-

member teams & faculty advisor.• Go on the plant trip.

• Query: What don’t they know how to do?

• 20 years of coaching, here’s my list.


Failure 1: Inability to Ask

• Don’t know how to frame or ask good questions.• Difficulty probing the problem.• Trouble querying what has

been tried.• Problem learning about

vendors and sources of information.• Historical terms: Socrates 101.


Socrates (470-399 BCE)

Failure 2: Inability to Label

• Don’t know names of common systems, assemblies, and components of technology.

• Engineers as technologically illiterate.

• Worse: Difficulty labeling new artifact concepts or models.

• Mainly comfortable with familiar categories and objects.

• Historical terms: Aristotle 101.


Aristotle (384-322 BCE)

Failure 3: Inability to Model

Don’t know how to model conceptually:◦ As causal chain.◦ As categorical list of types or kinds.

Pavlovian dogs when it comes to equations.

Need to understand problem qualitatively in words and diagrams prior to quantitative modeling undertaking.

Historical terms: Hume 101 or Aristotle 102.


David Hume (1711-1776)

Failure 4: Inability to Decompose

• Don’t know how to decompose big problem into little problems.

• Looking for magic bullets in equations of motion.

• Most projects too hard: Companies don’t pay $9500 for plugging into Newton’s laws.

• Historical terms: Descartes 101?


René Descartes (1596-1650)

Failure 5: Inability to Measure

• Don’t know how to measure stuff or collect data.

• Engineering taught as abstract math/science exercise.

• Ignore benefit of direct measurement.

• Historical terms: Locke 101 or Bacon 101?


John Locke (1632-1704)

Failure 6: Inability to Visualize/Ideate

• Don’t know how to draw sketches or diagrams when helpful.

• Have trouble envisioning solutions.

• Graphics education greatly diminished.

• Historical terms: da Vinci or Monge 101.


Failure 7: Inability to Communicate

Finally finish the project.Don’t know how to present

or write for business.“What we have here is a

failure to communicate.”Historical terms: Newman

101.


Paul Newman (1925-2008)

The Missing Basics vs. the Basics

• “The Basics:” math, science, engineering science.• Missing basics (MBs): questioning, labeling, modeling

conceptually, decomposing, measuring, visualizing/ideating, & communicating.

• MBs as more basic than “the basics.”• No surprise: 5th century BC in Athens as pivotal place

& moment in human thinking.• MBs as keys to – lifelong learning.– interdisciplinarity.


Do Engineers Need the Missing Basics?

• Yes!!• Three reasons:– Engineering is more than math & science.–World is flat: Training category enhancers in

world of category creators. –Qualitative reasoning necessary for great

engineering, not just creating “cultured” or “well-rounded” people.


Engineering is More than Math & Science

• Postwar: Engineering is applied science.– Von Karman: “A scientist discovers that

which exists. An engineer creates that which never was.”

– Koen: Engineering is heuristics.– Pitt: Technology is “humanity at work.”– Mesthene: Technology is “the

organization of knowledge for achievement of practical purpose.”

• Here: “Engineering is the social practice of conceiving, designing, implementing, producing, & sustaining complex artifacts, processes, or systems appropriate to some recognized need.”


Flat Worlds, Creativity & Missed Revolutions

• The paradigm was OK for WW2 & Cold War.

• Now a creative era, a flat world.

• Missed revolutions since WW2:– Quality revolution.– Entrepreneurial revolution.– IT revolution.

• Educate enhancers not creators.


Great Engineers Need Great Qual Skills

• Argument: Missing basics essential to being a great engineer.

• Not arguing for fluffy humanities & SS courses to make “well-rounded” or “cultured” individuals.

• Seek qual-quant balance for great engineering.


Bottom Line

• Summing up:– Senior design as way to recognize missing basics.– Missing basics: 7 things engineers don’t learn.– 3 reasons MBs important.

• Philosophical reflection is key to (a) righting past errors and (b) as key to conceptual rigor for subjects otherwise rejected as “soft.”

• Seeking qual-quant balance for great engineering not “culture” or “well-roundedness.”


fPET-2010: Philosophy & Engineering

• 2010 Forum on Philosophy, Engineering & Technology (fPET-2010), 9-10 May 2010, Sunday evening to Monday, Colorado School of Mines, Golden, CO.

• One-day intensive event.• 50-50 philosophers and engineers.• Grows out of earlier events WPE-2007 & WPE-

2008.

• www.philengtech.org © David E. Goldberg 2009

More Information

• iFoundry: http://ifoundry.illinois.edu • Talk: http://www.slideshare.net/deg511 • EotF2.0: http://engineerofthefuture.olin.edu• iFoundry YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/illinoisfoundry• iFoundry SlideShare: http://www.slideshare.net/ifoundry • TEE, the book.

http://eu.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-0470007230.html

• fPET-2010: www.philengtech.org or www.twitter.com/philengtech

• Twitter: www.twitter.com/deg511, www.twitter.com/ifoundry
