— I’m a female and I’m struggling to determine on a key when I apply to college. My family believes engineering is my very best selection. I’m not so certain.
I am really very good at math and science, but I also like to solve practical problems that are far more down to earth. My female friends in college are disappointed that most of their engineering classes are too theoretical and not hands-on enough.
My dad and uncle are engineers with advanced degrees from MIT and the Georgia Institute of Technologies. So there is pressure for me to continue the family tradition and become an engineer.
I’m a junior in high school, but I think I am much more interested in company as a main. How do I decide what is right for me? I hope you have some insight. —
— Very first, a short history to location your question in context. A few years ago, most engineering students came from blue-collar families. Most engineers had been the first members of their families to earn college degrees.
Generally, the father was a skilled worker, such as a machinist or electrician, who saw becoming an engineer as a ticket off the shop floor and into management. Now that the economy has slowed, engineering once more is starting to appeal to students, as job security takes on a higher priority. But this time, parents of engineering majors are less likely to be found on the factory floor and far more likely to be in management at high-tech firms such as Google or Microsoft.
Today’s engineers own and manage many of the most essential businesses in America. But I ought to give a caveat and point out that along with geniuses such as Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, the owners of Google also dropped out of engineering programs (Stanford) that had been too restrictive and stifled their vision on how to change the world.
Engineers are at the forefront of a revolution, and several engineering programs resist change. An old saying suggests most professors wished Gates had stayed at Harvard and earned his degree. Life would have been much easier for them.
Your concern that engineering majors are too narrowly focused on theoretical issues and not finding enough hands-on experience is nicely-documented. There seems to be a gap between course work and the real world of engineering. Possibly that has some thing to do with why Gates and other people left college just before graduating. Engineering schools are slow to change.
The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and the National Science Foundation reported in the Chronicle of Higher Education that “engineering education’s widespread emphasis on theory over practice at many of the nation’s 1,740 college-level engineering programs discourages many possible students, although leaving graduates with too small exposure to real-world problems.”
The report concluded “engineering programs aren’t meeting the needs of students or employers who want a far more relevant curriculum.”
The two areas most resistant to alter are engineering faculties and accreditation agencies. Both seek to reinforce old habits and justify staying with the old curricula. Millions of dollars have been given to universities to diversify their engineering curricula, but have failed to get past the “cultural issues of alter,” said Sheri Sheppard, vice provost of graduate education at Stanford.
One happy exception is Georgia Tech’s biotechnology engineering program. The problem-based approach taken by Tech permits students to take a semester to function on practical problems. 1 such program focuses on how to keep the blood supply secure from the AIDS virus.
1 crucial benefit of the hands-on approach to engineering is, it attracts a lot more ladies who typically would not contemplate it as a career. The breakdown of enrollment in biomedical engineering at Georgia Tech is revealing: 39 percent females, compared to 9 percent in electrical and pc engineering, and 12 percent in mechanical engineering.
I suggest that engineering is a excellent significant, as long as you do your analysis beforehand.
Georgia Tech and programs like it are locations to believe about when you apply.
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