How the cow ate the cabbage

[coberst]

How the Cow Ate the Cabbage

 

I am a retired engineer and I shall give to you what my understanding of the education of an engineer is all about; I do this because I think that almost all professional education in the US and elsewhere are very similar. I think that many young people have an uninformed view of these matters and I think that such erroneous views are detrimental to understanding the world we live in.

 

A young person receiving an education in engineering is taught the algorithms, patterns, and paradigms of their chosen profession. Essentially the student is taught the manual of the profession; just as a mechanic is taught the very same thing regarding the repair of automobiles. We were given the knowledge necessary to quickly become a productive worker for our employer.

 

The education of the professional is a rote learning of specific facts and how to utilize the tools of the trade as the patterns of the specific job dictate. The manual of the profession is temporally sufficient for the graduating student but the temporality is short lived. The work place is very dynamic and the graduate can function in the specific work place only for a short time before the reality of change forces the static individual into obsolescence because the manual of the profession is functionally diminishing as it is being taught.

 

I think that the educational institutions prepare graduates that fit the desires of the corporation but not the needs of the graduate. The work place is a rapidly evolving environment and the individual is not prepared properly to be a rapidly evolving worker.

 

Our institutions of learning are following the dictates of the corporation with little consideration of the student. Because this situation will never change until the citizens demand it one must recognize that any change must be contemplated as the responsibility of each individual. The individual can depend upon no institution to prepare them for the ability to evolve through out their work life.

 

The specificity of a given high school or college education is very beneficial during the early years of ones work life but this specificity is a drag on the rest of the work life. One must, in my opinion, learn how to learn and how to become a more flexible citizen thereby rolling with the punches of change.

 

A word to the wise is said to be sufficient, but I doubt that any of us qualify for a high grade in wisdom. Nevertheless, if you do not prepare yourself for such a future you might very well live to regret it.

[Kriminal99]

I disagree with the part about not depending on any institution to prepare them. Public secondary education works on an extremely primitive (thousands of years old), non economically driven system that is not concerned with the human learning process or how to best use it. Maybe when a better system is implemented education institutions will be very dependable.

[sanctus]

It doesn't seem to me to be as you say coberst. The problem is elsewhere if you go to university to learn engeneering you learn to learn, but you have no practice. If you make an apprentiship for example in mecanics you have 1 week of school every month (at least in Switzerland) with exams and self projects to present so you actually learn to learn and have practice.

 

You see this lack of practice for example when you use a machine where he button for turning it on isn't in an easy accessible place...then you know it's a student who planned this machine.