Reconnecting Engineering with the Social and Political Sphere

Abstract

Many students choose to study engineering because they want to make the world a better place. They have skills in math and the sciences and they want to use those skills to create technologies that solve problems. They want to make people's lives easier and they want to find answers to society's most pressing dilemmas. The promise that engineering can address many of the world's "Grand Challenges" gives them a sense of direction and purpose. All too often, however, as students progress through their undergraduate programs, this vision and purpose get clouded. A recent study has argued that engineering programs foster a "culture of disengagement" and that the public welfare concerns of students enrolled in them decrease over time (Cech 2014). There are likely many factors for this. The focus of the first two years of most engineering programs is on math and science courses and these are rarely linked to engineering practice, let alone social needs. Ethics courses are rare, and when they are taught they typically focus on microethics-local responsibilities-rather than the broader social questions covered in macroethics (Herkert 2005). And even design courses, which are supposed to help students think independently and connect different sets of expertise, rarely include significant attention to the social and political aspects of the problems being addressed. Students often enter engineering programs with broad social goals, but as they navigate through the details of a technical education their perspective and aspirations can narrow significantly. I frequently see this firsthand when I teach engineering undergraduates. I usually find that the ethical dilemmas that are typically presented to engineering students distract them from the most important ethical questions. But occasionally I will ask them one. For instance, I have asked groups of students what they would do if their boss asked them to design a technology that they knew would put hundreds of people

Science and Engineering Education as an Anchor in the Midst of a Changing World: The Case of Covid-19

“…Other studies emphasize essential skills such as the ability to integrate knowledge across disciplines (Brito et al, 2019;Grasso & Martinelli, 2010). In reality, while engineering solutions are considered to be the answer to many of the world's problems and challenges (Saleh, 2009;Wetmore, 2018), universities worldwide are reevaluating their science and engineering programs to adapt them to the new landscapes of industry (e.g., Industry 4.0), technology (e.g., data science and IoT), and education (e.g., new for-profit and non-profit competitors that offer both full degrees and short-term programs).…”