ieee-usa eBooks presents

Educating

21

st

Century

Engineers
Dr. James Gover, IEEE Fellow
Professor of Electrical Engineering Kettering University, Flint, Mich.
Dr. Paul Huray, IEEE Member
Professor of Electrical Engineering, University of South Carolina, Columbia, S.C.

Foreword
It has been well established that economic growth is stimulated by technology innovation. Engineers
make most technology innovation. Despite the importance of engineering to the economic growth of
the United States, as the U.S. economy has become increasingly driven by global competition, students
born in the United States are exhibiting decreased interest in a career in engineering. This declining
interest is evidenced by a 20 percent decrease of U.S.-born student enrollment in U.S. undergraduate
engineering programs, and an even larger decrease of U.S.-born students in engineering graduate
programs. In response to declining enrollment and the increase engineering complexity, engineering
colleges have decreased degree requirements typically about 20 credit hours over a generation. Yet,
declining enrollment continues...
Because of engineerings importance to economic growth, and the constraints of the global economy
on engineers salary growth, it is time for the federal government to declare engineering a public good.
And it is time for U.S. corporations to fill a major role in engineering education. We recommend that
companies willing to employ cooperative engineering students and direct their on-the-job education be permitted to pay students undergraduate and graduate school tuition, and then deduct those
education costs from corporate taxes. The practical work experience would be a major element of the
students engineering education, and the certainty of immediate and secure employment would be a
draw to new engineering students.

Published by IEEE-USA.
Copyright 2007 by the IEEE. All rights reserved. Printed in the U.S.A.
Edited by Georgia C. Stelluto, IEEE-USA Publishing Manager
Cover design and layout by Gregory O. Hill, IEEE-USA Electronic Communications Manager
This IEEE-USA publication is made possible through funding provided by a special dues assessment of
IEEE members residing in the United States.
Copying this material in any form is not permitted without prior written approval from the IEEE.
The opinions reflected in this e-book are those of the authors, and not necessarily those of IEEE-USA
or the IEEE.

Table of Contents
Chapter 1: Introduction

Chapter 2: Shortage of Highly Innovative Engineers

Chapter 3: Reasons for Declining Enrollment in Engineering Schools

Chapter 4: Corporate Engineering Staffing Strategies

13

Chapter 5: What Is an Engineer?

16

Chapter 6: Educating Engineers Who Work in Industry Is a Cooperative Activity

18

Chapter 7: Conclusions

22

Chapter 8: Recommendations

24

Acknowledgements

24

References

25

Educating 21st Century Engineers

Chapter 1
Introduction

Americans are proud of their number-one position in the world economy. Yet, slowly but surely, Team
America is being overtaken in all sorts of economic rankings. America used to be the worlds biggest exporter. Now, China has outclassed us. China also produced more cars than the United States for the first
time last year. And Toyota is widely tipped to overtake General Motors this year as the worlds biggest car
company. Also, in global finance, America and the dollar are being shoved off the pedestal. Households
and firms no longer prefer the dollar as the favorite form of cash. In the international bond market, the
Euro has displaced the dollar as the main currency. Of course, America still tops many league tables by
a wide margin. For example, the United States is the worlds biggest debtor nation; it guzzles the most
energy; and it has the biggest prison population. (The Economist, 04/17/2007)
Economists well understand that economic growth is largely driven by an increase in labor productivity, which is largely driven by technology innovation. Engineers produce and perfect most technology
innovation, and supervise and guide its manufacture. It is imperative for the long-term health of the
U.S. economy that U.S. universities graduate a steady stream of highly competent, experienced engineers that wish to pursue careers in U.S. industry. Relatively recent studies noted:
The United States takes deserved pride in the vitality of its economy, which forms the foundation of our
high quality of life, our national security, and our hope that our children and grandchildren will inherit
ever-greater opportunities. That vitality is derived in large part from the productivity of well-trained
people and the steady stream of scientific and technical innovations they produce. Economic studies
conducted even before the information-technology revolution have shown that as much as 85 percent
of measured growth in U.S. income per capita was due to technological change. (National Academy
of Science, 02/2006)
In the 1990s, we led the world economically largely because of our dominance in information
technologies, which had reached a point such that simultaneous advances in the application of those
technologies in a wide variety of industries greatly increased the rate of productivity in the economy as
a whole. (National Council on Economic Education, 2007)
In terms of the economic importance of engineering innovation, where would the U.S. economy, or
even the world economy, be today were it not for the technologies identified by the National Academy
of Engineering as the 20 greatest engineering achievements in the 20th century? In descending order
of importance, these are: electricity, the automobile, the airplane, safe and abundant water, electronics,
radio and television, the mechanization of agriculture, computers, the telephone, air conditioning and
refrigeration, highways, space exploration, the Internet, imaging technologies, household appliances,
health technologies, laser and fiber optics, nuclear technologies, and high-performance materials. (Jamieson, 03/2007) It is reasonable to expect that the 21st century economy will be driven by a different
set of engineering innovations.

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Even though technology innovation is a primary driver of economic growth, American and European
students are increasingly losing interest in an industrial career in engineering.

Educating 21st Century Engineers

Chapter 2

Shortage of Highly Innovative Engineers

Industry executives and university presidents from the most prestigious companies and universities in
the United States have been claiming for several years that there is a shortage of engineers graduating
from U.S. universities. What is often meant, but usually unstated, is that the shortage is of highly innovative U.S.-born engineering graduates who are prepared to immediately enter the work force and
make innovative contributions at the level U.S. companies need.
Many U.S. engineers lack the more demanding skills required by American tech companies today. Because routine tasks can be done more cheaply offshore, many executives say, they need U.S. engineers
who can rapidly move on to next-generation technologies, work well with customers, and manage
R&D teams. Wadhwa describes it as a gap between transactional engineers and dynamic ones. The
former are good at fundamentals but have a hard time applying their knowledge to broader problems. Dynamic engineers are more capable of abstract thinking, work well in teams, and can lead
innovation. (Business Week, 2006)
Under normal, free-market pressures, one would expect a shortage of engineers to result in more
outstanding U.S. high school students selecting careers in engineering. In fact, the opposite is occurring. Students enrolling in engineering and computer science has been decreasing for the past several
years, and there are no data indicating that higher quality students are choosing an engineering career
path. The number of U.S. high school graduates enrolled in undergraduate engineering colleges has
decreased by 20 percent since 1985, and the number enrolled in graduate programs in engineering
has decreased by an even larger percentage. Were it not for foreign students in engineering graduate
school programs, most of these programs would be closed. Ironically, the fewer the number of students enrolled in engineering programs, the fewer the number of electives universities may offer, and
the lower the overall quality of engineering education. These data are particularly alarming when one
considers that this 20 percent decrease in engineering enrollment has occurred during a period when
the number of U.S. high school graduates has increased by 800,000 students per year.
Furthermore, an undergraduate degree in engineering is increasingly providing entry to an MBA program, or medical, dental, or law school, rather than a graduate program in engineering. Therefore, a
growing fraction of B.S. engineering graduates never pursue an engineering career in industry. British
data indicate that two out of five engineering students in the UK have no intention of becoming an
engineer when they graduate. (www.engineerlive.com/news/17078/number-of-engineeringgraduates-plummet.thtml)
And the authors personal experiences indicate a similar percentage of U.S. students are using an undergraduate engineering degree as a stepping stone to a career outside of engineering. The reason
for declining engineering enrollment often cited in studies of this problem is that math and science
education in K-12 is weak. The implicit assumption is that few graduates of U.S. high schools are able

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to compete in the demanding math and science curricula of university engineering programs. While
U.S. governance would certainly benefit from having a quantitatively, scientifically and technologically literate population with the analysis skills of engineers, it is not clear that a substantial increase
in engineering enrollment would result from greatly improved K-12 math and science education. It
would certainly result in a higher fraction of high school graduates capable of pursuing a career in
engineering. Whether or not a larger fraction of these graduates would choose a career in engineering, is suspect.
In the following pages, we examine the shortage of highly innovative engineers to identify steps that
can be taken to remedy this dilemma. Student career choices are often made on the basis of immediate opportunity. And funded cooperative or intern education positions, with a clear career path in
companies, will give students another choice when they compare engineering to other professions.

Educating 21st Century Engineers

Chapter
3
Reasons for Declining Enrollment in
Engineering Schools

University professors who have taught Honors Physics for several decades report no decrease in the
quality of their U.S.-born students in the past 30 years. In fact, many would support the argument that
the quality of the best students has increased. Whereas 30 years ago the top performing students
in Honors Physics were either Physics or Engineering majors, today these students are majoring in
finance, business, pre-med, pre-law, etc. What accounts for this shift in student career interest?
The observation is that some U.S. companies are spending more on lawyers or MBAs than they are
spending on research and development. While corporate executives interpret this trend to mean that
the federal government should increase its expenditure on basic research, it is possible that students
interpret such data to mean that more career opportunities are available in corporations legal departments or management, rather than in their R&D departments.
Made up of some 215,000 U.S. IEEE members, IEEE-USA takes annual member polls to collect salary
data. While engineers starting salary is perceived to be high (and it is higher for B.S. engineering
graduates than for many fields at the B.S. level) when one corrects these data for the consumer
price index to obtain salary in real dollars over the past 30 years, the starting salaries of engineers at
the B.S. level have been static. Furthermore, over the span of an engineering career, on average for all
degree levels, the real salary doubles.
Many engineers who have reached the salary doubling stage of their career and have not entered
management, or have only progressed to middle management, often feel great pressure to retire although they may only be in their early fifties (Gover and McClure, 02/2004). Of course, pressure on
Social Security funding by retiring Baby Boomers, and the diminishing total fertility rate of industrial
economies, make it in the best interests of industrialized societies for employees to work well into their
seventies. It is extremely rare to find an engineer more than 60 years of age working in U.S. industry.
The perception of many of the highest performing high school students is that although other careers
may have lower starting salaries, other careers have salary growth opportunities that are five times
starting salary in real dollars, or dollars adjusted for purchasing power parity, and other career options
have potential for longer duration than engineering.
Engineering employment in industry lacks the stability that it had when enrollment in engineering
schools was growing. Engineers working for defense contractors are often laid-off when government
contracts are completed or cancelled. Re-employment, if possible, often means relocating to cities
located well away from family roots. To accelerate salary growth, many engineers change jobs every
three years, negotiating a higher salary with each move. The result of this is a journeymans image of
engineers.

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Most corporate Human Resources Departments fail to understand that a degree in engineering has
taught graduates a logical approach to problem-solving that can be applied to problems students
have not yet encountered. Because engineering technology is so dynamic, engineering schools must
emphasize the basic principles of engineering. The educational goal is to produce a graduate that
is able to adapt to new technology as it emerges. Yet, corporate HR Departments treat engineering
education as if it were a training program akin to being trained in a routine task, such as operating a
certain type of machine or running a particular computer code. Therefore, when seeking engineering employees, companies often turn away qualified engineers because their work experience does
not exactly fit the job the company is seeking to fill. Of all professions, engineering is often the least
understood.
Undergraduate engineering education is expensive and the cost is rapidly rising. Most beginning
students cannot afford even one year of funding from their own or their familys savings. One year at
a state-aided public university can easily cost $15,000 or more for students whose residency is in that
state. And one year at the highest-rated Ph.D. granting research universities can easily cost $30,000
up to $50,000. It is not unusual for an undergraduate engineering student to graduate with $40,000
to $50,000 or more in government loans. The debt load of the graduate provides motivation to go to
work after obtaining the B.S. degree to begin paying off those student loans. Incidentally, those B.S.
graduates that need to enter the work force immediately after graduation with the B.S. degree are not
eligible to work on the engineering staff at many U.S. companies or the national laboratories, because
they lack a higher academic degree.
Prior to the accelerated growth in the global economy, an increase in engineers salaries had little
impact on a companys competitiveness, because the companys competitors experienced the same
salary increase. Companies passed higher engineering salaries on to consumers. However, in the
modern global economy, U.S.-based companies must compete with companies around the world
including companies located in India and China. Based on currency exchange rates, engineers salaries
in those countries may be 10 to 20 percent of U.S. engineers salaries. Therefore, for technology intensive, U.S.-based companies to compete with companies based in lower income countries, U.S. work
force salaries cannot be too far out of line with those in the countries of their competitors.
Thirty years ago, U.S. companies were able to hire new graduates of engineering programs and place
them under the guidance of more experienced engineers. The general view was that new engineers
would not begin to earn their pay for at least two years. In todays highly competitive global economy,
engineering graduates must immediately be productive and earn their pay from the beginning of
their employment. In fact, most job advertisements for engineers require two years or more of work
experience.
So, engineering colleges have gradually decreased undergraduate engineering degree requirements
to compete with other degree programs and compete with other educational institutions. Over a
thirty-year period, the requirements for a B.S. degree in engineering have decreased by seven or more
semester courses, or 20 or more credit hours, in most engineering colleges. One of the casualties
of diminished degree requirements is cross-discipline engineering education. For example, it is not
unusual for electrical engineers to graduate with only one course in mechanical engineering and mechanical engineers to graduate with only one course in electrical engineering.

Educating 21st Century Engineers

Engineering mathematics education has also been compromised. A generation ago, engineering
students took advanced math courses in vector analysis, partial differential equations, eigensolutions,
complex variables, tensor analysis, special functions, and finite difference equations. Today, engineering students rely on computational packages written by specialists, and often these students do not
understand the underlying mathematics. Students who rely on computer simulation codes often do
not know the limitations of the applications, the relative magnitude of sensible answers, the units
involved, nor the problems that can be encountered by blindly adopting such codes.
So, the expectations for engineers productivity have increased at the same time that undergraduate
engineering hours that students spend in classrooms has decreased. Courses are run at a fast pace and
many engineering students are unable to compete at that pace. Consequently, engineering schools
must both set high standards for admission and drop those that cannot keep pace, or else dumbdown the curriculum. A retention rate hovering above 50 percent and company complaints about the
quality of new-hire engineers suggest that both options are taking place. It should be obvious that
declining enrollment encourages engineering schools to dumb-down the curriculum, shortchanging
their graduates competence.
Despite the efforts of U.S. universities to increase engineering student retention, the graduation rate
has changed very little during the past 30 years. Student exit surveys showing students dropping out
of Kettering University indicate that the primary reason engineering students do drop-out is lack of
financial resources. A United Kingdom (UK) survey of 100 engineering faculty found that 86 percent of
faculty attributed the high UK engineering drop-out rate to students financial difficulties.
Of the 250 students surveyed in the UK to determine measures that would attract more students to
study engineering, the following data were obtained:
(www.engineerlive.com/news/17078/number-of-engineering-graduates-plummet.thtml)

57% cited higher industrial employment rates after graduation

47% cited industry sponsorship of their education

47% cited better promotion of engineering careers by industry

47% cited less theoretical and more practical course content

(The cooperative / intern education model proposed in the chapter on the Education of Engineers Who
Work in Industry Is a Cooperative Activity addresses each of the issues UK students with industrial work
experience identified, providing much of the practical course content.)
While the mathematics and science underpinnings for all fields of engineering are relatively static, the
technology of engineering has expanded to include software; more complex, computer-controlled
hardware that often disguises the basic measurement principles; and sophisticated computer modeling and simulation tools. In addition, the rate of change of technology has increased. Engineering
practice is fast-moving and requires cradle-to-grave, life-long learning!
Historically, we can track two traditional sources of U.S.-born engineers: veterans and farm-reared
students. After World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War engineering school enrollment
grew because the GIs saw the role advanced technology had on fighting wars. Many learned through

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military training and testing that they had a special aptitude for technology and perhaps the most
important: The federal government absorbed much of the cost of their engineering education. Of course,
because of farming productivity growth and the subsequent elimination of small farms, the number of
farm-reared students is a rapidly vanishing fraction of the population. New pipelines to replace these
traditional ones have not emerged, despite replacement efforts.
Every U.S. college of engineering has instituted special degree programs and made a concerted effort
to recruit women to choose a career in engineering. Despite these extraordinary efforts, the fraction of
women entering engineering programs finally reached 20 percent of the engineering school population before it began to slowly decline. Today, only about 15 percent of U.S. engineering students are
women, and a disproportionate fraction of these women are concentrated in Industrial Engineering
and Biomedical Engineering.
Reform attempts notwithstanding, engineering school continues to be a dreary and stressful affair. Typical
curricula still struggles to include all that is important, and as a result they are overstuffed and unattractive. More study subjects are likely to be crammed into the heavy course list; fewer obsolete old favorites are
likely to be retired. The post-college workplace is not much better. Compared to the fields of education or
healthcare, the ethos of the engineering workplace long hours, high stress, high competitiveness, onesize-fits-all is quite uninviting. This is especially true for women, who still carry child-rearing duties in our
society much more heavily than men. (Moshe Kam)
A similar phenomenon has been observed with minorities. With the U.S. Hispanic population projected
to reach 25 percent of the U.S. population before the middle of this century, the African-American
population stabilized at 14 percent of the U.S. population, and women constituting over 50 percent
of the U.S. population, the majority of U.S.-born engineering students are currently coming from a
relatively small and diminishing fraction of the population Caucasian and Asian-American males.
After the Soviet Union launched Sputnik in 1958, many U.S. leaders expressed great alarm that the
United States was losing its technological leadership. In response, Congress passed the National Defense Education Act (NDEA). As the Association of American Universities (AAU) points out,
The NDEA inspired generations of U.S. students to pursue careers in fields vital to national security and
aided the nation in establishing its dominance in science and technology for the next half century. The
NDEA has largely disbanded, but as we approach its 50th anniversary, the national security and economic challenges facing our nation are as daunting as ever. (www.aau.edu)
One of the strongest NDEA features was that it had broad bipartisan support. Part of the reason for
that support was the funding distributed to all American universities, not just the leading research
universities, or even just the AAU universities. The awards were made locally, so NDEA supported
students at universities throughout the United States, and it was administered without establishing a
massive federal bureaucracy.
While the United States is making a concerted effort with the No Child Left Behind Law to improve K-12
science and math education, Americans often express with pride their profound ignorance of science,
math, technology and engineering. The fact that it is acceptable to be mathematically and scientifically illiterate, or that classmates brand unusually bright young people nerds, gear-heads, bookies or
other derogatory expressions does not make a career in science or engineering particularly appealing

Educating 21st Century Engineers

11

to young people in the age range. Young people also take note when their elders make derogatory
remarks about engineers.
Most educated people would be ashamed to admit that they dont know the difference between Hamlet and King Lear, but they might jovially brag that they dont know a gene from a chromosome, or
the relativity theory from the uncertainty principle. Americans wink and nod at our scientific illiteracy,
but this complacency will only cost us in the long run. It doesnt take an Einstein to figure that out.
(Isaacson, 04/2007)
Unless engineers invest in continuing education, they can easily become out of touch with the latest
computer simulation and modeling tools required for job efficiency. On the other hand, global competition causes many engineers to work 60 hours per week. The demands of work and family leave
little time for continuing education, and companies are reluctant to pay for it, or to give engineers time
off the job for it. Ironically, the greater the need for continuing education, the fewer the number of
engineers who seek it. University professors could accommodate the needs of practicing engineers for
continuing education via the online or television courses, but they must produce student credit hours
that are supported by corporations to justify the added cost of the courses. Some short-sighted corporations believe it is less expensive to fire out-of-date engineers and hire a new cadre of experienced
engineers, than to provide continuing education for their employees.

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Chapter 4

Corporate Engineering Staffing Strategies

To meet their needs for engineers willing to work at salaries more closely aligned with those of competitors in India and China, U.S.-based companies are lobbying Congress to increase the number of
H-1b work visas from the current level of 65,000 per year to 180,000 per year. American universities
with major graduate programs in engineering find that very few U.S.-born students are interested, nor
can they afford to fill their classrooms, so U.S. graduate programs in engineering are filled with foreignborn students who enter the United States on student visas. Federal research grants, or other federal
or state funds, often finance the education costs of these foreign students, as well as the facilities and
equipment they use. Many of the foreign-born graduates transition from a student visa to an H-1b
work visa upon graduation. Ironically, the U.S. taxpayer is financing the education of foreign-born engineering graduate students, but not financing the education of U.S.-born, undergraduate engineering
students, many of whom would pursue graduate degrees in engineering were they not saddled with
large debts for their undergraduate education.
While H-1B visas may offer temporary relief to companies engineering employment problems, this
strategy will not work over the long haul. It has already been observed in Japan (after World War II)
and South Korea (after the Korean War) that as the economies of countries grow, a very large fraction
of foreign-born engineers wish to leave the United States and return to their home countries. Most
of those returning to their country of origin actually earn higher incomes at home, when measured in
terms of purchasing power parity, than they earned in the United States. With Indias economy growing
at eight percent-per-year, Chinas growing at 10 percent-per-year, and progress being made in public
governance, engineers from India and China who are working in the United States will find it advantageous to return to the country of their birth. Not only will they find economic advantages in returning
to their home countries, they will also find social advantages. In India, for example, engineering is as
prestigious a profession as medicine.
History teaches us that relying on engineers born outside the United States is a temporary band-aid
that delays addressing the root cause of declining U.S.-born student interest in engineering. The United
States must eventually find a way to provide its engineering work force with internal resources, rather
than imposing a brain drain on emerging economies.
Although the United States has not experienced any major security threats from immigrants who are
professionals, the United Kingdom has arrested seven physicians for orchestrating attempted bombing attacks in London. These physicians were alleged to be particularly upset by the U.K. involvement
in the Iraq War (Landler and Lyall, 2007).
Another strategy of corporations to avoid the misalignment between U.S. engineer and laborer salaries, and China and Indias engineer and laborer salaries, is to outsource jobs, including research and
development and production jobs. The often quoted statistic is that India and China are graduating 12

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13

times the number of graduating U.S. engineers. {Note: Duke University researchers claim this statistic
is an overestimate. (www.memp.duke.edu/outsourcing).}
Despite the growing attraction of outsourcing, Duke University surveys of U.S. companies indicates
that 37 percent observe U.S. engineering employees to be more productive than offshore engineering employees, while nine percent observe offshore engineering employees to be more productive
than U.S. engineering employees. In addition, 38 percent found U.S. engineering employees produce
higher-quality work, while one percent found offshore engineering employees produce higher-quality
work. Approximately 50 percent of U.S. companies also reported that intellectual property theft and
language or cultural differences were barriers to offshoring. (Wahada)
The Bush administration lodged a pair of formal complaints with the World Trade Organization over
the widespread availability in China of counterfeit American goods, and made barriers to sales there
of U.S.- made copyrighted products. The action signals a more assertive administration approach to
Chinese trade practices that contributed last year to a bilateral trade deficit of $232.5 billion, and an
overall trade gap of $764 billion. In recent weeks, the United States filed a separate WTO case accusing China of employing illegal subsidies to benefit its export industries and reinterpreted Commerce
Department rules to permit the use of special duties on Chinese imports. (Lynch, 2007)
Duke University company survey statistics show beyond any doubt that the primary advantage a U.S.
company gains from off-shoring is salary savings. Nevertheless, 40 percent of the companies polled
expect the salary advantage will eventually be offset by wage inflation in China and India. (Wahada)
A Syntel survey of 325 Fortune 1000 IT executives regarding IT outsourcing revealed that 33 percent of
respondents cited wage inflation in India as the number one threat; followed by quality concerns, cited
by 27 percent; and possible outsourcing of legislation, cited by 21 percent. Other threats included
security risks, cited by 10 percent of respondents; and middle management resistance, cited by nine
percent. Indian IT wage inflation is 15 percent-per-year, compared to five percent in the United States
(Great Lakes, 2007).
Like H-1B visas, off-shoring is a temporary band-aid that delays addressing the root cause of the problem
of declining interest in engineering. In the long run, it is imperative that the United States provide its own
intellectual resources in engineering.
It is clear that U.S. corporations need innovative practices in their HR Departments, because many have
dysfunctional hiring strategies for engineers. For example, most corporations have a rather limited
list of universities from which they recruit. Generally the companies on this list are either well known
universities, (e.g., MIT or Stanford), or are a company from which a senior executive graduated. These
limited recruiting sources result in too many recruiters pursuing too few graduates, and exaggerates
the perception of a shortage of engineers. Furthermore, it is well understood by those who have managed engineering projects in industry that innovative engineers graduate from universities throughout the United States, and that graduates of the highest-rated universities are often unsuccessful in an
industrial environment.
One government-owned laboratory has a requirement that all new-hire engineers must have received
their last degree within two years of laboratory employment. Other government-owned laboratories
and corporations will not hire a B.S. graduate, despite the fact that some of the most successful cor-

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porate executives (e.g., Michael Dell and Bill Gates), and some of the most successful inventors (e.g.,
Stanley Ovshinsky (en.wikapedia.org/wiki/Stanford_R._Ovshinsky) and Stephen Wozniak (Greenburg, 1994), did not graduate from a university. None of the four people just cited would have made it
through a company- or government-owned laboratorys HR Department.

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15

Chapter 5
What Is An Engineer?

Although most people believe they know what engineers are and what they do, in fact, engineers
perform a wide range of jobs. To some, engineers, sit in cubicles, look-up mathematical formulas in
handbooks, and plug their data into computers to calculate some new parameter. Many faculty members view engineers as designers when, in fact, very few engineers have an opportunity to design new
products. Far more engineers manage product production rather than design. To others, engineers
repair hardware. A broader definition of engineers to which most can agree is that they are problem
solvers. In fact, engineers fill a wide range of functions that can be divided into four major areas:
1)

Experts in applying science and mathematics to solve problems of interest to society

2)

Experts in applying technology, generally technology limited to the specialty field of the engineer, to solve problems of interest to society

3)

Inventors of products and services that solve problems of interest to society

4)

Businesspersons or activities managers that solve problems of interest to society

Most companies employ engineers in Areas 1 and 4. Many corporate HR departments think that all
engineers perform the tasks in Area 2, and see engineers as technicians with a B.S. or M.S. degree. The
major distinction between an engineer and technician is that the education of an engineer is intended
to prepare an engineer for these four career dimensions; whereas, a technician is prepared only for a
career in Area 2.
One may cite well-known engineers who have excelled in one of these four areas:
1)

Claude Shannon, father of the information age, was an electrical engineer who excelled in
mathematics. Many regard Shannon as the greatest scientist of the 20th century. He was
accomplished in technology, was an excellent inventor, and was particularly skilled at turning
mathematical abstractions into practical analysis tools. Shannon developed the mathematics
that made communications a scientific discipline. He also developed the sampling theory that
paved the way to converting analog signals into digital signals; and he introduced Boolean
algebra to the design of digital circuits. Despite the uniqueness and profound impact of his
work, Shannons employer, Bell Telephone Laboratories, permitted him to publish his work
and make it available to the world.
Most of Shannons work was mathematically complex, yet today it is a staple in electrical engineering communications education. Shannon was an eccentric who enjoyed riding his unicycle through the halls of Bell Telephone Laboratories, while simultaneously juggling rubber
balls. Many U.S. corporations today would have difficulty coping with Shannons eccentricities
assuming, of course, that he could clear the HR Department. (Shannon)

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2)

Charles Kettering, one of the two most successful inventors of the 20th century and holder
of more than 300 U.S. patents, was also an electrical engineer who excelled at invention. Kettering was an excellent technologist, and had a deep qualitative understanding of science.
Although not highly interested in business administration, at Cadillacs urging, he founded
DELCO, now part of Delphi Corporation, to manufacture the electric starter he invented.
When Kettering made this invention, he was a full-time National Cash Register (NCR) employee, but independently worked in his barn during the evening inventing new products. Not
only did National Cash Register not claim ownership of the inventions Kettering made outside
of the NCR workplace, management encouraged him to do independent work. Although Kettering was Vice President of Research for General Motors, he preferred the laboratory to the
board room. His first love was invention. (Boyd)

3)

Alfred Sloan, one of the most successful corporate executives of the 20th century, was an
electrical engineer who excelled at both business and management. During Sloans tenure as
chair of General Motors (GM), GMs U.S. market share grew from 18 percent to 60 percent, and
it became the worlds largest company. While his technical accomplishments do not compare
with those of Shannon or Kettering, Sloan was clearly an outstanding engineer, and possibly
the most important U.S. executive of the 20th century. (Sloan)

The most important point to be made from the extraordinary success of these electrical engineers is
that each excelled in at least one of the four areas of engineering previously identified. Furthermore,
it is engineers like these that change the world and have a great impact on society. And it is engineers
like these that U.S. corporations need to compete in the world economy. High-quality engineering
education must prepare engineers for the diverse careers illustrated by these three great men.
In addition to the qualities described above, U.S. companies are seeking engineers who are outstanding communicators (both written and oral); are highly team-oriented; have high ethical principles; are
familiar with and understand major societal problems; have demonstrated leadership qualities; and
understand the impact of their work on society.

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Chapter
6
Educating Engineers Who Work in Industry Is a
Cooperative Activity

Engineering educators cannot teach all of the skills B.S. graduates need in a four-year undergraduate engineering education program. A graduate education in engineering that does not connect the
student to industrial problems is also deficient. U.S. corporations must be involved in the education
process of engineers. And that involvement must benefit the corporation, and not add additional cost
to a companys bottom line. To meet the model of an engineer described earlier, the companys educational role is equal to that of the university.
Universities can provide the science and mathematics background needed for a career in engineering,
but help is needed in preparing engineers to be inventors; help is needed to prepare engineers for careers in business and management; and help is needed in exposing engineers to emerging hardware
technology. Universities use gifts from software companies to teach engineering students the latest
simulation and modeling technology. For example, gifts from Mentor Graphics and Ansoft permit
Kettering University and University of South Carolina to offer students education in emerging software
tools in hybrid vehicle design, digital signal integrity, and electromagnetic field analysis.
Universities can offer writing and speech courses that teach the principles of communication, but
these are talents for which excellence requires practice more practice than universities can supervise. However, corporations can provide both speaking and writing practice opportunities. Engineering educators are using team-based learning in their classes; however, actual work experience on a
company team, while attending college, further contributes to developing engineers that excel in a
team environment.
Universities can offer many opportunities for their engineering students to join social organizations,
civic service clubs, honor societies, team-based competitions, professional societies, and intramural
athletic competitions. Such organizations and groups help students develop their leadership skills.
But none compare to the experience engineering students gain from leading teams in a corporate
setting, especially if some team members are older, more experienced engineers.
A cooperative work-education experience,1 one in which the student spends half-time at work and
1
Both authors did their graduate work as cooperative education students. Professor Huray
worked cooperatively at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory and did graduate work at the University
of Tennessee. Professor Gover worked cooperatively at Sandia National Laboratories and did graduate work at the University of New Mexico. Both made use of their employers facilities while conducting their Ph.D. research. Professor Huray currently supervises several graduate students doing
research work at Intel facilities in Oregon, from his office in Columbia, South Carolina.

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half-time at school, has proven to be the model for educating engineers that corporations find best
meet the expectations described previously. Most undergraduate engineering colleges encourage
students to work one or two summers in an intern position; however, this six-month experience does
not compete with the education they gain from working with the same company for 50 percent of the
time they spend in pursuit of B.S. and M.S. degrees. Less than five U.S. universities provide an undergraduate education that is equally spent between academic education and co-op work experience.
Some companies permit employees to concurrently work full-time on Ph.D. level projects while under
the joint supervision of a company employee and a university professor; however, most universities
prefer more control over the research activities of their graduate students than this model permits.
The University of Cincinnati pioneered the co-op engineering education model in 1906, and time has
demonstrated it to be a highly successful, if not the most successful, method for educating engineers
for industrial careers. This model has been successfully employed at both the undergraduate school
and graduate school levels.
Charles Kettering had a deep-seated belief in the merits of cooperative education:
The medical college people were the first, perhaps, to establish the basis of our so-called cooperative
education. They put their students up against actual cases in the hospitals and the wards, so that they
might learn from direct contact what to do for the patient. Theoretically, we can learn everything out
of books without practicing. But that is all wrong. To the cooperative student, the job is his laboratory,
in which he learns the details of his profession. Today, we have more elaborate experimental and
technical equipment outside the universities than inside. It is far better that the student get the basic
principles of his engineering education in the school and his understanding of the applications of that
knowledge to industry through the cooperative work experience. (Boyd, p. 35)
The limited participation of universities in full, co-op, undergraduate education is partially a result of
the administrative costs of managing a co-op program. And many engineering research universities
are not particularly interested in placing more emphasis on undergraduate engineering education,
or corporate-directed graduate education, because their core competence is graduate education and
federally-funded. These institutions are educating engineers for faculty positions, not industrial engineering jobs. Such roles are important, because engineering educators are also an important link
in educating engineers. However, an engineer that gets a graduate degree in this environment is not
particularly well-prepared for an industrial career.
In 2000, the world was annually generating two exabytes of data equivalent to about 250 books
for every man, woman and child on earth. To put this rate in context: since the beginning of history,
humanity has created a total of 12 exabytes. Furthermore, in 2000, it was estimated that the next 12
data exabytes would be generated by 2002. Although the total amount of collected information is
now doubling during the period of an engineering education, 99 percent of this information is unusable because of the inability to distinguish what is high quality and accurate. (Jaroslave Pelikan)
Most engineering disciplines are creating so much new knowledge that a National Academy of Engineering study listed the half-life of engineering knowledge as about equal to the time of an engineering education. Some fields, like IT, are moving even faster. In other words, by the time new
engineers matriculate, about half of what they have learned is obsolete. We must find a way to keep

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19

U.S. engineers on the forefront of practical knowledge, even while they are in school.
William Wulf, president of the National Academy of Engineering, said:
Unlike engineering, every other creative field on campus expects their faculty to practice and perform.
Even if you do not buy the argument that engineering is creative in the same way as art or music,
you can look to the professions of medicine and law, which also expect their faculties to practice the
field they teach. Can you imagine a medical school where the faculty was prohibited from practicing
medicine? Yet, not so in engineering. Engineering faculty are, for the most part, judged by the same
criteria as science faculty and the practice of engineering is not one of those criteria. The faculty
reward system recognizes teaching, research and service, but not delivering a marketable product or
process, or designing an enduring piece of the nations infrastructure. The criteria for promotion and
tenure make it hard to hire and reward people with such experience, even though it would be valuable
for students. In many cases, even taking a sabbatical in industry may be risky for faculty because it
does not contribute to the usual resume-building activities of an academic.
Professors working with industry researchers who mentor their students, also gain from the excitement
of being on the cutting edge of knowledge generation. Professors will interact with those researchers
and perhaps consult for the companies on the incorporation of fundamental knowledge into practical application. While the engineering professors will learn how to meet a deadline and to get the
job done with some compromises due to cost or other practical considerations, the industry will
also gain by knowing how their advances build on the fundamental principles of science and other
technology.
If students that work in cooperative engineering jobs had their tuition paid by their company sponsors,
it is likely that four major effects would result: undergraduate engineering enrollment of U.S.-born
students would grow; engineering graduate school enrollment of U.S.-born students would grow; additional universities would develop fully cooperative engineering undergraduate and graduate education programs; and higher quality, innovative students would be attracted to engineering careers. But
for these major effects to manifest, two breakthroughs in thinking must occur:
1)

Engineering must be recognized to be a public good, because the technology engineers create drives economic growth.

2)

Since engineering is a public good, it is reasonable to offer federal tax incentives to companies to hire undergraduate and graduate co-op engineering students, as well as pay for their
education.

While inquiries need to be made of companies to determine the degree of tax incentive that would
result in their sponsorship of educating cooperative education engineering students, we propose
that legislation be passed permitting a company to pay for an engineering students tuition to undergraduate and graduate school; pay the student an appropriate salary for half-time employment; and
deduct the full tuition cost from the companys federal tax payments. As with other employees, the
salary costs of cooperative employment are deductible as expenses. Note that if such legislation is
passed, and it fails to attract more students to pursue engineering education, no reduction in federal
revenues will occur. On the other hand, if successful and significantly more students are attracted to
study engineering, the additional revenue that accrues from their salaries and their innovations should

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easily compensate for reducing corporations federal tax revenues. Therefore, from a federal revenue
perspective, this proposal is zero risk.
The costs of continuing education for a company are dominated by the time employees miss work.
At this time, companies can deduct employees salaries as a cost for federal tax purposes, but no special tax provisions are offered for sponsoring continuing education. Consequently, most companies
consider continuing education to be the employees sole responsibility. To encourage companies to
provide continuing education for their engineers, we propose that companies be able to deduct from
their federal taxes half of the loaded salary costs of the time their engineers spend off-the-job, attending company-approved continuing education courses provided by a reputable source.

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Chapter 7
Conclusions

U.S. companies believe a shortage exists of U. S.-born and educated, highly competent engineers,
who can drive companies to competitive excellence in the international marketplace.
Engineers invent, improve, design and manage the production of technology that is a primary
driver of the economy.
U.S. students are educated in a culture that rewards creativity and individuality, as compared to most
foreign-born students, who learn in a culture that rewards rote learning and conformity. As a result,
U.S.-educated engineers continue to be the most innovative employees.
The defense of our nation depends upon the ability of the United States to maintain leadership in
science and technology, as well as a healthy mix of academic studies and practical applications to
prepare future manpower to sustain leadership in national defense.
When U.S.-born students weigh the costs of an engineering education against its benefits, many
believe other professions have higher benefit/cost ratios. Consequently, U.S. engineering universities are experiencing declining enrollment of U.S.-born students at both the undergraduate and
graduate levels.
While our society would benefit from improving K-12 math and science education, this deficit is not
the root cause of declining enrollment in engineering education programs.
The quality of U.S.-born college students enrolled in Honors Physics programs has not declined;
rather, it is their interest in engineering careers that has diminished.
The public perception of an engineering career in U.S. industry has declined for numerous reasons;
but in emerging economies, engineering is often the most prestigious profession.
The global economy requires U.S.-based companies to hire engineers whose salaries are approximately aligned with those of their international competitors.
Companies have responded to their perceived lack of highly competent, U.S.-born engineers willing
to work at internationally competitive salaries by lobbying to bring more foreign-born engineers to
the United States on H-1B visas, and by outsourcing engineering jobs offshore.
While off-shoring and increasing H-1B visas have short-term benefits to companies, over the long
haul; the United States must be able to develop its engineering intellect internally.
U.S. engineering colleges are unable to provide engineering students with the broad education
and diverse experience they need to be immediately innovative in a highly competitive corporate
environment.

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Cooperative engineering education, in which an engineering student splits the time spent in school
and the time spent working for a company equally, is the model of an apprentice education that best
prepares students for industrial jobs that require knowledge of emerging technology, math and science skills, a flair for invention, talent in business and management, leadership skills, communication
skills, and the ability to perform in a team environment.
This cooperative or apprentice education model has proven to be successful in medicine, pharmacy,
law and other professions.
The significant costs for a university to administor a cooperative engineering education program is
currently passed on to students. But, many potential engineering students who would be attracted
to a cooperative engineering education cannot afford the costs and the additional time cooperative
education requires.
U.S. companies must absorb the costs of educating students that are participating in cooperative
education. And the federal government must offer U.S. companies tax incentives to pay for tuition
for cooperative education engineering students tuition. And finally, U.S. companies must offer continuing education to their on-roll engineers, if companies are to choose a longer-term alternative
than off-shoring or increasing H-1B visas.

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Chapter 8
Recommendations

The federal government, U.S. companies, and society must recognize engineering as a valuable public good, because the technology that engineers create, improve and manufacture is a primary driver
of U.S. economic growth.
Cooperative engineering education, in which students spend half-time working for a company and
half-time in engineering school, must be promoted.
The federal government must offer tax incentives to companies to hire undergraduate or graduate cooperative education engineering students, as well as to pay for students education and their
salaries for working half-time.
Congress should pass legislation that permits a company to pay for four years of a U.S.-born engineering students undergraduate tuition, and three years of graduate engineering education, then
deduct the full tuition cost from the companys federal tax payments provided the engineering
student spends half-time each year working for this company. (The federal government already pays
for most of the cost of graduate engineering students through research grants; however, the majority of those students are foreign-born and lacking in industrial work experience.)
Legislation should include the opportunity for students in any state to participate in the cooperative
engineering education program through their local engineering colleges.
One percent of the funding for Department of Defense, NASA, and Department of Energy R&D programs spent at government-owned laboratories should be set aside for these laboratories to support
cooperative engineering education (both student salaries and tuition). This measure would assure a
steady stream of U.S.-born citizens to become employees of these laboratories.
Congress should also pass legislation to permit a company to deduct 50 percent of the loaded salary
costs of employees taking time-off-the-job to participate in continuing education courses, determined by company executives, from its federal tax payments. Such measures would aid the company
in strengthening its core competence.

Acknowledgements
Dr. Charles Gwyn, IEEE Life Fellow and Intel retiree; Dr. James Jorgensen, IEEE Senior Member, Sandia
National Laboratories retiree, and former faculty member, University of Nebraska; and the Faculty
Senate of Kettering University are acknowledged for reviewing this paper and offering important
suggestions for improvement of its content.

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References
1)

Come In, Number One, Your Time Is Up, The Economist, 14 April 2007, p. 12.

2)

Pete Engarido, Is the U.S. Really Falling?, Business Week, 27 Dec. 2005, www.businessweek.
com/bwdaily/knflash/dec2005/nf20051223_7594_db039.htm.

3)

Committee on Prospering in the Global Economy of the 21st Century, Rising Above the Gathering Storm: Energizing and Employing America for a Brighter Economic Future, The National
Academy of Sciences, The National Academy of Engineering and the Institute of Medicine,
February, 2006.

4)

New Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce, Tough Choices for Tough Times,
National Center on Education and the Economy, 2007, p. 21.

5)

Leah H. Jamieson, Improving the Publics Awareness of Engineering, The Institute, March,
2007, p. 9.

6)

Paul Huray, when teaching honors physics as a Distinguished Professor of Physics and
Engineering at the University of South Carolina made these observations and he notes that
professional colleagues at other universities have made similar observations.

7)

James Gover and George McClure, The Realities of Age Discrimination, IEEE-USA Todays
Engineer, Feb. 2004.

8)

Moshe Kam, Why Janie wont go to Engineering school? (Hint: Janie is not dumb), IEEE
Interface, 21 Sep. 2005, www.ieee.org/web/education/apc/sept05_kam_article.html.

9)

Walter Isaacson, A New Way To Wiew Science, USA Today, 10 April 2007, p. 11A.

10)

Mark Landler and Sarah Lyall, 7 Doctors Tied to British Plots, New York Times, July 4, 2007.

11)

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of Engineering Workshop on the Offshoring of Engineering: Facts, Myths, Unknowns and
Implications, Washington, D.C., 24 October 2006.

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David J. Lynch, U.S. Complains to WTO on China, USA Today, 10 April 2007, p. B1.

13)

Matt Rousch, The Great Lakes IT Report for May 8, 2007, Syntel Poll: Indian Wage Inflation,
Quality Top Outsourcing Concerns. http://greatlakesitreport.com/article.asp?=427657.

14)

Keith Elliot Greenburg, Steven Jobs and Stephen Wozniak, Creating the Apple Computer,
Blackbirch Pr Inc, 1994.

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Claude Shannon, A Mathematical Theory of Communications, Bell System Technical Journal,

July and October, 1948.

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T. A. Boyd, Prophet of Progress: Selections from the Speeches of Charles Kettering, E. P. Dutton
and Co., 1961.

Educating 21st Century Engineers

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17)

Alfred Sloan, My Years at General Motors, Currency, 1963, reissued 1990.

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Jaroslav Pelikan, Higher Education in an Age of Specialized Knowledge, Library of Congress

Lecture, Tuesday, 9 September 2003.

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William A. Wulf, How Shall We Satisfy the Long-Term Educational Needs of Engineers?, Proceedings of the IEEE, Volume 88, Number 4, April 2000, pp. 593-596.

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