Engineering Education in 2050/Engineers as Applied Social Scientists

The Past and Present of Engineering Education

Engineers stereotypically focus on technical solutions,  ignoring insights from social sciences. This view mirrors a traditional engineering education. Traditional engineering education has a focus on the technical side of engineering, with social sciences as an afterthought. At the University of Virginia, all engineering students (regardless of field) are required to take four main engineering ethics courses (named “STS”). With many types of engineers in one class, topics are generalized without going into the specific issues of each engineering major. Engineering students are also required to take “HSS” courses, which expose students to different humanities and social sciences. Many of these “HSS” courses are not social sciences, meaning students can go their entire engineering education without taking any social science courses.

In a study of engineering schools at US universities, Erin Cech (2014) found that students’ esteem for ethics, technology studies, the humanities and the social sciences consistently declined before graduation. With college being a time where students are exposed to different topics, it is important for students to experience social sciences. As many engineering jobs require solutions with implications in social sciences, social science exposure in college is necessary . Since engineers' roles in policy development and decision making are increasing in areas such as infrastructure planning, and technology regulation, it is important to alter the engineering curriculum to make sure they have the tools to engineer the best solution.

Future for Engineering Education

In the previous section we established the problem of a lack of societal based education in engineering education. So, what needs to be done if engineers are expected to make the decisions similar to those of social scientists? In this section we propose ideas that will act as tools for this emphasis on societal based education, and in the next section we will predict how to implement these ideas for a new sort of engineering education in 2050.

While many current engineering programs implement ethics education in some form, we still feel as though there is a disconnect between them and the topics learned in technical classes. Currently it seems that these programs are somewhere between micro (relationships, individuals, families) and macro (legal systems, nations, societies) ethics, in a zone that is referred to as meso -ethics. This zone focuses on communities, ethnicities, organizations, and other systems that are smaller in scale but still have profound effects on society. For engineers to be social scientists, we believe that they need to learn about these different levels of ethics, but mostly focus on the macro level, in order to eventually make big-picture decisions with the least amount of bias.

In the current system of engineering education at the University of Virginia, students are required to take nine credits (three classes) relating to the humanities and/or social sciences (HSS Electives). While we believe that this is a good step in the integration of social sciences into engineering education, more needs to be done. The problem with these electives is that there are far too many options for students to select that don’t necessarily have to do with social sciences. These electives do provide cultural education which is important to a societal based education, but not specifically tied to the science behind human behavior. We believe that students should be required to take more specific courses that fall into the fields of psychology, sociology, anthropology, political science, and/or economics. Along with this, students should have to take a few courses with a central cultural topic, like a language course or something in the arts.

Being engineers, some of the best ways we learn are through hands-on learning or case studies (real world applications). Because of this, we see it appropriate that two classes of engineering history should be required. One class would focus on engineering from ancient to modern times, and how the technological developments of those times affected societies and how those groups responded. The second course would focus on engineering failures, and how they affected society. With all of the above classes, engineers will make a connection between why their social science education is important to their technical education, seeing that many of these failures could have been prevented with the education that they would be receiving. Finally, in the more technical based classes, societal and ethical concerns should be tied into the different topics, so students can see how exactly these society based topics fit into their specific discipline. In the next section, we explain realistic ways that these ideas could be implemented.

Implementation

Currently, engineers primarily take courses in their own discipline alongside several math and natural science courses. This makes for a comprehensive technical engineering education, but not a “well-rounded” one, as it fails to incorporate a social science education. In designing a new engineering curriculum, it is important to reflect the needs of the industry. Integrating social science related courses into the regular engineering curriculum can help students become better prepared for the workforce, as many engineering industries exist in the context of multiple fields and engineers have an ethical responsibility.

An interdisciplinary education is a type of “well-rounded” education plastered across several pages of the University of Virginia’s College of Arts and Sciences website. Interdisciplinary study involves the combination of two or more disciplines to create something new. UVA’s College of Arts and Sciences has two notable instances of interdisciplinary study: (1) a Bachelor of Interdisciplinary Study and (2) required integration electives for the BA CS major combining computer science with other fields. UVA’s engineering school lacks the same emphasis on interdisciplinary study. However, looking at engineering disciplines in the real world, we can find natural interdisciplinary combinations for engineering disciplines. Civil engineering pairs well with urban development, as a background in Urban Planning would allow Civil Engineers to make more informed proposals and landscape-fitting designs. Other relevant combinations include data science & politics and psychology & computer science. Combinations like these could be represented in the Engineering curriculum as interdisciplinary majors, or as concentrations. Different from a usual double major, the curriculum for an interdisciplinary major would include requirements for courses that combine the two disciplines. This could better prepare engineering students for the real world by giving their skillset in a broader context.  Non-engineering students should also be able to take engineering-based classes, many of these students are likely to work with and have to understand engineers in the future.

In our experience, we have found that it is more natural for students in the College of Arts and Sciences to double major across disciplines. This could be as a result of certain engineering majors having less flexibility in terms of required electives. Looking at UVA’s engineering computer science curriculum, there are multiple natural science electives, like chemistry and biology, that are unlikely to be at all relevant to a CS major’s career. By replacing these courses with interdisciplinary courses, students are both able to take classes that combine both their major and another discipline. In more inflexible majors, a concentration in another social science subject with ties to their major could be an effective alternative.

Engineering disciplines have many social and ethical implications (bias in AI, environmental strain of engineering materials, social implications of urban development). This gives engineering students a responsibility for the effects of their work. Integrating readings/lecture slides on the ethics of subjects in already required courses (labeling in Machine Learning, issues with Agile in Advanced Software Testing, etc.), can be a simple way for students to gain a broader perspective on their work.  Working on engineering projects with students of other disciplines can also allow students to gain a broader perspective of their own work. This can be accomplished through collaboration with the local community in projects. In the curriculum, this could be added as an extra step to Capstone projects. There could also be lab or project-based classes that combine different majors, such as an app designing class with CS and graphic design students. CS students could develop an app, while graphic design students could design the art for it. In a real-word context, engineers are expected to be able to collaborate with professionals in different fields. This could be a good first step.