Introducing reality when educating engineers-how much is too much?

When the author joined the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Western Ontario, his teaching intentions were greatly influenced by eight years work experience with structural engineering consulting firms. His original objective was to bring the real world into the classroom, to illustrate structural engineering with real examples as a means of injecting both energy and motivation into the learning process, and, occasionally, to present his own experiences as evidence for the need to master some difficult, or dry, topic. The students´ response to date has been quite positive. As the author considers course improvements for the coming year, the question that emerges is “Is there a limit on how much reality can be injected into course curriculum?” The author discusses this issue