General Engineering Introduction/ASEE Paper/Freshman Problem

The Freshman Problem

Respect versus Expertise and Experience

Freshman engineers are crippled by the K-12 narrative: “experience creates expertise and ultimately respect.” Today, first hand, direct experience is expensive. Expertise is now routinely gained from simulation. Ignorance can have as much value as expertise. The order has been reversed: demonstrate Respect, build some Expertise and then reward with direct Experience. The currency freshman engineers need to be taught is Respect.

Push off versus Pull Up the Educational Mountain (expertise)

K-12 requires instructor expertise. But it cripples the self-motivated/self-learning that everyone is naturally born with. For example, a freshman team is tasked with building a toy robot boat. One person decides to design the hull. They feel their first task is to find a hull design expert or become an expert.

Many engineering programs combat this with “scaffolding” which merely reinforces education expertise rather than challenge it. Scaffolding homogenizes, puts content before creativity and provides no future skills other than exhaust yourself/do your best.

What is the alternative? Meet the world as it presents itself. There are toy boats. There are soda bottles. Pick one. Put it in the water. Attach the motors and radio controls. Create an on time, functional, attractive deliverable. Earn engineering reuse respect. Modern adventures are in junk pile explorations. Let the project dictate the content.

Engineering education must become comfortable with pushing students off the mountain into unknown waters (to both student and teacher) and learning to swim on their own. We have to teach against the K-12 archetypes rather than leverage them. We have to never work harder and never know than our students. We have to resist doing the project ourselves. We must wear the client/project manager hat, not the students engineering hat.

My problem versus atoms (timidity)

How does an engineer gain the respect that will attract investment when nobody else knows? If the engineer calls their own personal lack of knowledge a “problem”, there will be no investment. Engineering will not happen. The simple answer is to focus on service. “I am going to serve you by building a radio controlled model boat on time, that works and it will look gorgeous.”

There are three paths an engineer walks. One is the path of exercising expertise. This is the public face of engineering and it unfortunately fits the K-12 education models. But it is not the focus of engineering. The second path is exploration, learning about something that will improve the species. The third is learning what one doesn't know, something new to the engineer.

For an engineer, expertise is a fleeting moment of clarity that disappears as soon as the next unknown is tackled and technicians take over. Expertise is not the goal. Service is the goal.

The typical question freshman engineers are asked (“What type of engineer do you want to be?”) plays into the wrong archetype. Almost every engineer will describe their life by their role in a project (sales, support, design, testing, implementation, prototype, management). The non-engineering public expects expertise demonstrations. Do we want to graduate engineering students that will only look for jobs in the fields they have some educational derived expertise .. ie Statics = Bridge Building?

Big versus little problems (scope)

Why introduce huge project issues into freshman engineering courses? Most intro engineering texts describe big problems and then assign students a project such as “Here is a bunch of parts: build a model car.” Students cannot connect the small problems they encounter to the big ones discussed.

K-12 loves reflections that start with “I have a problem organizing”, “ I have a problem focusing”, “I have a lack of expertise.” None of these are engineering problems. Engineering problems are outside of our minds. They are stumbled upon. Some are small, some grow large and engulf everyone.

K-12 doesn't like problems. Problems exist only paired to solutions. The seduction of solutions, the impartiality of problems, the brainstorming of possible solutions, and the rationalization of testing are foreign issues. Most minimize the pain and frustration a problem triggers. Freshman avoid problems instead of finding engineering inspiration in them.

Engineering problems seeds are discovered by individuals. Most remain small and are solved immediately. Some grow. Some explode to many small problems. Documenting the process, collecting justifications, describing attempts and failure symptoms results in an engineering mind. Trying to fit anything into a big problem design mold confuses students.

Feeling success

Many community college engineering students have experienced life narrowing failure. They have not experienced motivating, confidence building success.

Most introduction to engineering classes have a single project that all students do. Even huge colleges with 700 students, force them all into one project. Some officially label the whole experience a competition. Competition produces success for a handful and failure for most. This supposedly models competition in the real world. In reality it is discouraging to all but the best and brightest.

The alternative is many small different projects, three team members, smaller scopes, lower expectations, and small successes with enormous celebrations. The problem is not multiple choice questions on tests. The problem is that we only celebrate multiple choice question test success. Celebrations create respect. Can we organize engineering departments to celebrate the design of a screw?

Failure Respect

The hardest part of engineering is helping students find inspiration in frustration and problems. The second hardest thing is teaching students how to generate Respect in the face of failure. The secret is teaching students how to document failure.

The goal of Failure/Can't be Done documentation is to establish enough Respect that others don't attempt to repeat the failure. Typically this requires exhaustion of internet searches, time and inspiration. Any uncertainty or timidity will attract more engineering. All respect will be lost.

Like and Timidity

Freshman are often motivated by social connections. Without carefully describing engineering team member relationships, most teams fall apart. The need to create social connections may create priorities that compete with their intellectual goals. Stories must be told of Respect lost when everyone agrees on everything, and stories must be told of Respect gained by working through differences.

Students will try to justify undebated solutions by the K-12 efficiency archetype rather than acknowledge the like and be liked seduction. It is necessary to look for problems rather than gloss over them, to slow down and reword the problem different ways without solution, to sink into the frustration's despair and find inspiration there. Teams don't do this. Individuals do.

Most team activity is individual activity. The team aspect is comparing, fitting, testing and then negotiating how to split up again. Separating We from I requires being accountable and transparent. It is one of the most important engineering ethic and respect issues. The maturing of freshman is has to begin with targeting the like and be liked timidity dance.

Slackers

Engineering education grading overvalues those that can concentrate/learn from books and undervalues those that learn verbally and can shrink complex topics to sound bytes. This is expressed by the saying “A students become instructors, B students end up working for C students.” This is scary to community college students who will never transfer with a C.

Slacking issues appear immediately. At least half of all K-12 students learn from the class collective mind rather than from the teacher. Unique projects expose this parasitical ugliness. This has to be spun positively. Turn slackers into communicators. Talk about the other danger of "hard to work with." Identify and celebrate communicator success. Equate communication with documentation success. Both are needed on an engineering team.

This issue is not solved by Myers Briggs tests or even Johnson O'Connor interviews. The conventional approach that creates slackers and the hard to work with has to be addressed early. Otherwise students will immediately begin labeling themselves and drop out of engineering.