taken from http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2006/05/25/engineering
> The Technology Mosaic > > That Tom Friedman guy was on to something. His ³world is flat² thesis has all > kinds of educators thinking more about the role of science in society. It also > reflects a growing sense in science and one that is not new to engineering > colleges that the next generation of technology trail-blazers need a broad > education. > > Norman Fortenberry, director of the National Academy of Engineering¹s Center > for the Advancement of Scholarship on Engineering Education, said that the > move toward interdisciplinary engineering curricula is definitely a trend. ³It > is in response to an increasing consensus within the engineering education > community,² he said, ³but more importantly in the employer community.² > <snip> > In his recent ³State of the School² address, Plummer emphasized efforts to > create what he and at least several other deans who have apparently adopted > the term calls ³T-shaped students.² The vertical part of the T represents > the traditional math and science education of an engineer, and the crossbar is > all the other stuff, from marketing to sociology, that students need so they > don¹t end up as deep but narrowly educated toothpick students. > > In an interview, Plummer said that a big part of his push is to inspire more > students to turn to engineering. One of the ways Stanford is doing that is by > getting freshmen and sophomores into the lab, and putting them in intro > seminars of 15 or fewer students that Stanford hopes will bring students into > engineering, rather than weed them out, as is the norm in cavernous g-chem > lecture halls. > > Plummer said that getting underclassmen in the lab where ³they can get excited > about pushing the state of the art,² has changed the traditional undergraduate > experience from one where incoming students are faced with surviving two years > of calculus, chemistry and physics before they learn what engineering is all > about. > > Plummer also noted Stanford¹s Institute of Design a.k.a. ³d.school,² where > engineers can partner with students from across the university to take on big > picture problems. Rather than the typical senior project where four electrical > engineers collaborate, a team in the d.school might be made up of an > electrical engineer, a mechanical engineer, a sociology student and a business > student. > > ³They¹d take a problem like thinking about designing a product useful for > making lighting for people in the developing world,² Plummer said. ³Together > they¹d think about what the product ought to do, with cultural input.² > <snip>
