Writing Across Engineering: A First Year Implementation

Argument (1): (Curricular) "Tell them early where you are going"
===>>>define engineering in the first year

Virtually all writing guides emphasize the importance of defining at the outset the direction and nature of the story to be told. Paradoxically, engineering curricula almost universally neglect this time-honored advice. Instead, most sentence the new student to math, physics, chemistry, humanities, and social sciences Thus, one to two years pass by before any engineering courses of substance and example are offered. The student is launched upon a journey without clear definition of the voyage or description of the port of arrival. One result is found in the too-often heard remark, "I didn’t see what engineering was all about until my final semester, when it all came together in the design project." This backwards situation has even produced satire of engineering curricula ; a short example appears here (reprinted by permission of ASEE)(3)

This benign neglect avoids provision of an early, realistic definition of engineering, and has come under deserved fire for some time. Points of attack include claims that engineering curricula emphasize only mathematics and analysis, neglect holistic and aesthetic considerations, and stress individual competition vs. group collaboration. Neglected dimensions, which could be useful in providing early definition, include team rather than individual assignments, case studies with holistic considerations as well as analysis, and the artful nature of design.

The cries of neglect have reached ears at the highest levels of the education and research establishment. The National Science Foundation’s program for engineering education consortia was developed largely in response to external criticisms of existing curricula. The American Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) has radically revised its traditional "one size fits all" approach to accrediting engineering curricula, and its ABET Criteria 2000 challenges each engineering school to write its own mission statement, to devise curricula (presumably with some novelty!) to produce appropriately trained students, and to develop post-graduate assessment to verify that the graduating student product met the learning standards proclaimed in the mission statement. Vocabulary aside, this approach dares engineering schools, and all instructors who teach engineering students, to become involved in definition and revolution.

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