It is fashionable, and too facile, to argue that what new students need is simply more attention from full professors who have overinvested in research rather than teaching, from administrators who reward grant entrepreneurs rather than great lecturers, and from a culture which honors its top researchers but knows not its terrific teachers. We do not need simply to "release the full charisma" of senior faculty across one or two generation gaps to fall upon the ears and heads of new students.
What new students need is an identity, a sense of purpose, a sense that they are valued individuals with personal and professional contributions to make to their culture. If university learning is to immerse the student in the controversy and culture of human activities, and if most students learn more easily from context-based examples, why not use the first engineering year to provide an identity as a neophyte professional ? Since engineering is the only major professional degree conferred via an undergraduate curriculum, why not give the student an identity to be carried far into professional life. And if "students may not realize they lack" an introduction "to both the tradition and controversy " of their chosen profession, why not provide these early, in the foundation rather than the capstone course? It takes time, after all, to grow a crop to maturity. Why not plant as early as the academic weather allows!
We have argued the point that an early introduction to reading and writing about engineering and technology is supported by curricular, personal, and professional development needs. We now discuss our first experiences in providing such writing opportunites to first year students at typical levels of preparation, appropriate to writing about exposition and argument, interpretation and evaluation, or all four.
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