Enhancing Engineering Education to Reflect the Professional Expectations of the 21st Century: Examples from In-Process Programs

This paper examines complex issues associated with 21st century engineering practice as described through comparisons between a controversial report, The Engineer of 2020: Visions of Engineering in the New Century, and our own engineering students of 2005. According to this report and other recent studies published by leaders in engineering education, engineering students of the 21st century will possess a markedly different set of skills and abilities in order to thrive in a world of high-technology and globalization. Unlike traditional engineering programs that have portrayed students as “empty vessels” waiting to be filled with a regimented schedule of discipline-specific courses, 21st century engineering programs are predicted to be student-centered programs customized to meet the needs of a divergent mix of undergraduate engineering students through “enhanced instructional methodologies”. This paper presents examples of such programs already in progress in a large, metropolitan institution far in advance of 2020 in hopes that such examples will mitigate the hesitancy and resistance for engineering educators more familiar with traditional engineering instruction