Engineering "light"

The Gordon McKay Lab for Applied Science is reflective by design. (Image courtesy of Flickr user photopasture.)

Pop quiz time!

Engineering "light" is...

a) a low-cal, no-taste sports drink
b) a newfangled form of nanomaterial
c)  a source of illumination for all those late night p-sets
d) none of the above

The correct answer is d. While primarily said sub rosa, engineering "light" was a common refrain, or warning, that was said again and again when Harvard was ramping up its engineering program in the 2000's.

Example: "The engineering educational program at Harvard will not be MIT-light!" (or, what I like to rephrase as, "it will not be a crimson-colored polar-fleece to their goose down jacket.") In other words, having a robust engineering program was utterly compatible with an institution better known for the traditional liberal arts. The marketing copy of the school reinforced the idea:

The concentration is open to those who might not have had opportunities for rigorous mathematics or exposure to engineering or computer science in high school. At the same time, the program caters to those who dream about taking Math 55 their first year.

In fact, Harvard has long offered both an A.B. in Engineering Sciences (setting it somewhat apart) as well as an S.B. (ABET-Accredited and more demanding in terms of requirements.)

That looks like some seriously fun engineering.

More recently, based upon student interest and in fulfillment of the promise to become a "serious" engineering school, Harvard has created more specialized undergraduate degrees in biomedical engineering, electrical engineering, and mechanical engineering. Such degrees were not without controversy.

“If a concentration that has 20 course requirements is structurally irreconcilable with a liberal arts education, which I think it arguably is, why create even more concentrations like these?,” said Peter J. Burgard, a professor of German.

“I worry that the size of the concentration is driven by the professional demands rather than the demands of the college,” said James T. Kloppenberg, chair of the history department.

“We’ve tried to create an ethos in which our undergraduate concentrations are not 20 half-courses,” said Diana L. Eck, professor of comparative religion, suggesting that the College might not have consistent standards across disciplines. “I don’t see this as just this incredible exception.”

(Quotes from an article that appeared in the Harvard Crimson.)

There is an implicit fear that too much emphasis on what appear to be pre-professonal programs could enervate the liberal arts.

Just as Jefferson’s liberal arts education prepared him to help revolutionize the world, become an inventor, and succeed at most challenges he undertook in life, the diffusion of knowledge he sought for all citizens remains today an essential part of the American mind. Chinese and other foreign economies suffer from the lack of a workforce that has the creative, critical thinking that comes from a strong liberal arts education and, for that reason, are sending their youth to study in America in record numbers. To be an American is to think outside the box, to seek the frontier, to rethink and invent. And a liberal arts education has frequently proven to be essential to that success, just as it was with Jefferson. (from "Thomas Jefferson’s liberal arts education" by Jeffrey B. Trammell, chairman of the board of visitors at the College of William & Mary. The story appeared in the Washington Post.)

In part to counter such concerns, the dean of the engineering school, Cherry A. Murray, has expressed her desire to make engineering accessible to EVERYONE through secondary fields (minors), gateway courses like CS 50, open clubs like Robocup, and opportunities for concentrators across all departments and schools to be involved with innovation through entities like i-Lab.

SEAS dean Cherry A. Murray thinks everyone should like engineering as much as they like ice cream.

Engineering and the liberal arts should, in fact, be happy siblings, coexisting and empowering each other.

That too was not without some concern by the "serious" engineers. Some felt that this ad featuring Harvard students who took one engineering course that changed their lives---however inspirational---could also be seen as dismissive to the profession.



In a similar way, still others expressed concern that the University's emphasis on innovation (like that highlighted in the video) obfuscated the blood, sweat, and tears needed to make technical advances.

There is something to be said there.

A piece published in the Harvard Business Review raised the ire of many an engineer.

Cheer up. You don't have to be Einstein to disrupt paradigms. Well, actually, you do — Einstein himself said that his greatest asset was his imagination, not his knowledge. The point is, if you can think, you can innovate. If you can ask "why?" you can change the world. Let other people do the hard work of figuring out how to make an airplane fly and a TV screen thinner. You can be the one who figures out that putting the TV in everyone's airplane seatback could make for a great new airline.

In this case, innovation simply becomes equivalent to better marketing.

Tell that to someone who spent time at an "idea factory" like Bell Labs (like the prior-, interim-, and current dean of engineering at Harvard), and you will get an earful. Or in this case, an op-ed in the LA Times written by Venkatesh "Venky" Narayanamurti (dean from 1998-2008).

The United States also has put at risk its greatest asset: the return on its intellectual capital. We have let China learn by doing, South Korea innovate by manufacturing, India build new capabilities in design and research and development — much of it on the back of initial American innovation.

With manufacturing gone to China, for example, R&D followed Apple to Foxconn. Applied Materials set up a major R&D shop in China, where solar cells are being manufactured. GE, Texas Instruments, Cisco and others established major R&D and design centers in Bangalore, India.

Why? Because you can't do R&D offshore from a distance. The "look-see-do" of innovation depends on close ties to the manufacturing process. Proximity to manufacturing is the key to other higher-value activities — design, engineering and R&D. And with that, jobs.

The famed, former Bell Labs is often the benchmark for great science and engineering.

In short, if we do not do the "the hard work" of figuring things out and building things ourselves, we will outsource out entire future. Training more marketers is not going to result in new markets. Through invention, engineers, the saying goes, create markets that never were.

Whew. Let's take a breath.

In sum, engineering as an academic endeavor seems to be having an identity crisis. Or from a communications perspective, a branding or vision problem. Or at the very least, it is having one at Harvard.

Do we do serious engineering or liberal arts engineering? Are we about training a few exceptional engineers or about giving everyone just a little bit of engineering? Are we training future engineers or leaders who happen to know engineering (but may not end up in the profession)? Is it possible to balance doing all of these things---and do all of them well?

Rather than seeing this as a bad thing, it suggests that the field is quite healthy. It means that engineering educators (and engineers) are really thinking about their profession. Debate is the fuel of academia, after all. By contrast, a field that has all the right answers and only one way to do things is likely on the way out.

Moreover, this kind of soul-searching is, in fact, happening well beyond Harvard's oak paneled faculty meeting rooms.

PRISM, the magazine of the American Society for Engineering Education ran a cover story in its Summer 2012 issue: "Steeper Assent: Should a master's be the minimum for engineers?"

An article in PRISM about whether the master's should be standard for engineers.

The piece asks whether a master's degree should be he minimum degree for an engineer. This is an debate that goes back to the 1940's.

Proponents argue that to remain a technological leader in today’s fast-changing, digitized world, the United States needs engineers with excellent technical training who are also “broadly educated,” as the NAE “2020” panel put it, with good communications skills and a grounding in humanities, language, and social sciences – a tall order for a bachelor’s program ...

Deans from the Ivy League engineering programs (including Harvard's) agree that it is "a tall order" but one that they are uniquely positioned to fulfill. The following is taken from a yet-to-be-published whitepaper on Ivy Engineering:

The Ivy League applied science and engineering schools provide an educational framework required to meet these challenges. Our students not only learn engineering and fundamentals in the classroom, but also work side by side with leading researchers probing transformational knowledge in science, social science, the humanities, and the arts. They work across scientific disciplines, and also across such disparate fields as medicine, ecology, law, public policy, and business. Well grounded in the liberal arts as well as the applied sciences, they are curious, open minded, critical thinkers who use discussion and debate to frame issues even when not all the facts are clear. They have made a clear commitment not only to science, but to civil society as well. 

They are Ivy engineers!

Despite the animated rallying cry, not everyone, however, thinks that ivy alone is enough for today's engineers.

“Our jobs are getting more complex, and those who say they’re not getting more complex have their heads in the sand,” argues Blaine Leonard, an ASCE past president who is leading the Raise the Bar initiative. Duderstadt agrees. “We need to produce the world’s best engineers,” he adds, “and we can’t do that at the bachelor’s level.”

All in all, it turns out that engineering "light" is very heavy indeed. Unlike the pop quiz, there is no one or right answer.

Engineers, well known for being able to balance ambiguities, should find that to be a comfortable state of affairs.

Likewise, students should be excited that engineering education leaders are willing to take risks, try out new things, and continue to rethink the nature of the degree.

The debate about the soul of engineering is going to continue to evolve. While it may be a stretch, Mark Zuckerberg's The Hacker Way may, in fact, provide a way forward:

The Hacker Way is an approach to building that involves continuous improvement and iteration. Hackers believe that something can always be better, and that nothing is ever complete. They just have to go fix it — often in the face of people who say it’s impossible or are content with the status quo.