I recently spent a couple of days at the annual conference of the American Society of Engineering Education (ASEE) in Austin, Texas. This event draws roughly 3000 attendees from colleges and universities, mostly from the U.S. While the temperatures outside soared past 100°F, the convention center kept most of us shivering in our boots.
I’ve been to this event several times, but this year I presented a paper related to my advisory work on a National Science Foundation grant project focusing on updating university electronics curricula. Mostly, though, I went to observe what’s happening with the electronics side of engineering education. Here is the big picture as I saw and heard it.
Dearth of Industry Participation
You would think that since the products of our educational institutions are the graduates who go into industry that these companies would be more interested in the educational content and process. I did not see any actual industry representatives at the conference, although surely some must have been there. I cannot help but think that industry would want to be more visible and want some say in shaping the product it ends up paying so dearly for.
Yes, it does take time to participate in education, and most industry folks have precious little spare time to do so, even if they are interested and concerned. Yet participation is necessary. As the old saying goes, if you keep doing the same old thing, you’ll get the same old result. So it is with education.
I fear that we are getting the same old things in our graduates, despite the fact that the industry and technology have moved on and only increased their rate of change. Sadly, the academic community does not usually proactively seek industry input. Most colleges and universities have industry advisory committees, but in my experience schools pay only minimal attention to what these advisors say or want.
Faculty Arrogance
There is more than a bit of arrogance in the attitudes of faculty in most institutions, which is easily detectable in their presentations and in casual conversation. I suppose that most professors feel this way because of their advanced degrees and, I have to admit, superior (in most cases) IQs, knowledge, and competence. There is an overall attitude of “we are smart and know what is best to teach.” Maybe to an extent that is true.
When the goal is to teach fundamentals and basics, it is probably a good idea to let the academics decide. But when it comes to knowing the current needs of industry, I am skeptical of this attitude. The fundamentals do not change, of course. But as technology moves on, some fundamentals become unnecessary, others can just be mentioned, and new fundamentals need to be added. This is where industry advises on content and approach as well as what to emphasize and what to ignore.
Self-Absorption
Academia is focused on itself and less on the students. I will probably hear from angry professors on this claim, but I know I am right. The institutions are so wrapped up in their own issues, problems, and politics, not to mention personal pursuits, that they often forget the students and the industry they serve.
Many professors no longer actually teach. I am not kidding. They get graduate student assistants to teach many classes or conduct labs. What do the professors do then? They write papers to further their own careers and develop and apply for grants—or actually do grant work that brings in big bucks to the department and institution. Students suffer a bit for being denied access to the real teaching talent originally hired for the job.
Another example is the incredible amount of time spent in trying to recruit more women and minorities to engineering. I am not criticizing the effort, as we surely do need to find more ways to attract high school grads into engineering. This effort does not seem to have had much effect, yet the institutions seem determined to produce a student body more aligned with the “correct” quotas or some perceived inconsistency than with students who are interested and capable.
Dated or Skewed Curricula
I have the sense that some of the electronic programs aren’t as up to date as they should be. Most professors tell you they teach and stress fundamentals, and that’s good. But you still need to introduce the latest in components, techniques, and methods so graduates don’t enter the industry without some sense of the current technology. That is almost criminal.
Most graduates still have to go through some on-the-job training when they’re first hired, but they shouldn’t be so ignorant of modern practices that they look bad. That to me means keeping a program up to date, which needs to be done on a course-by-course basis. In a dynamic industry like electronics, it should be ongoing.
Most professors appear to fight against change. Change is hard. It takes time. Most teachers like to keep teaching the material as they learned it one, two, or even three decades ago. Yes, I know that fundamentals don’t change, but you should at least try to teach them in the context of the current technology.
I wish professors would be more open to adopting the latest information and techniques. Yet since they don’t work in industry, I fear that they have a very vague knowledge of what’s new, important, and only nice to know. It’s a subtle thing. Many professors have never worked in industry, or if they did, it was many years ago.
In a way, I fault the institutions more than the faculty, as many professors would like to be more up to date. But few colleges and universities will fund continuing education activities of any kind, such as seminars and conferences, or allow for time off. It’s funny how the institutions want the latest knowledge and tout their pre-eminence but won’t support it unless some government grant funding is paying. Again, what is wrong with this picture?