A Rational Basis for Engineering College Education

The paradox of engineering education is that it must prepare the student to undertake work in areas unknown at the time he is attending college. An attempt is made to formulate criteria for establishing engineering curricula which will meet this apparently self-contradictory requirement. Rather than basing education on apparatus and techniques possessing high rates of obsolescence, it is suggested that the following be emphasized: the disciplining of the mind; communication techniques, both linguistic and mathematical; the cultural heritage of mankind; the macroscopic properties of the three states of matter; invariant principles of laboratory apparatus; fundamental network theory; and the field concept and radiation.