Engineering education and the ideals of liberal education

Summary form only given as follows. Since the publication of C.P. Snow´s seminal monograph “The Two Cultures,” the gulf separating technology/science and the humanities seems to have grown larger. Given the humanities´ claims for the educating and liberalizing value of its disciplines, technological education appears to be more and more relegated to the category of training rather than education. However, much of this dogmatically accepted belief is due to the dominance of the literary culture in the propagation of ideas in our society. When the issue is viewed from the perspective of technology, as exemplified in contemporary engineering education, the situation appears in an entirely different light. From there, it seems that it is technological education which is truly liberating, while humanities education has only a narrow focus. To evaluate the accuracy of the two perspectives it is necessary to ask again the question of what constitutes the ideals of a liberal education and how various disciplinary studies attempt to approach these ideals. The conclusion of this investigation shows not only that engineering education provides a solid liberalizing foundation for its students, but that it is striving to continually broaden this base. Where it is lacking is in making a convincing public case for its accomplishments. This, in turn, has negative effects on the career prospects of engineers. What is needed in the future is both a more objective outlook by engineering educators on their own activities and an emphasis on changing public perceptions of the accomplishments of engineering education