Engineering education needs a “second mile”

The demand for strictly professional engineering service will diminish in volume but will rise sharply in its qualitative standards, while the demand for quasi-professional services will increase markedly. This is one of the opinions voiced by Doctor Wickenden in a recent address,^∗ full text of which is presented herewith. In order to prepare men to furnish these services most effectively, he concludes that their education should consist of a common matrix of 3 years, with a terminal year for men who purpose to enter the general service field, and a longer period of more profound and generalized scientific studies for those who aspire to the professional field — not a separate route for the purely professional engineer, but a “second mile.”