What is Engineering in ENGR131?

On the first day of class in ENGR131, the first year engineering class at Purdue, we of course address the question, what is engineering?

The definition of the engineering profession as given by ABET is in the textbook and in the standard set of slides that get shared among all the faculty teaching the class.

"The profession in which knowledge of the mathematical and natural sciences, gained by study and practice, is applied with judgment to develop ways to use, economically, the materials and forces of nature for the benefit of mankind."

I think this gives a very narrow view of engineering and doesn't even begin to address the social and environmental constraints engineers must work under. I wanted to get another message out there to help balance some of the ineptitudes of this one, so I chose a quote from William A Wulf (former president of National Academy of Engineering).

"My favorite operational definition of engineering is 'design under constraint.' Engineering is creating, designing what can be, but is constrained by nature, by cost, by concern of safety, reliability, environmental impact, manufacturability, maintainability, and many other such 'ilities.' Engineering is not 'applied science.' To be sure, our understanding of nature is one of the constraints we work under, but it far from the only one, it is seldom the hardest one, and almost never the limiting one."

I still get goose bumps when I read this quote. Simple but so powerful. This quote really resonated with the message from Jonassen that workplace problems are more that solving math ands science problems. They are messy with social and political constraints that engineering grads are not prepared to handle. Dall'Alba set the stage for us by saying that skills and knowledge are not enough for skillful practice and Jonassen gave us the backdrop for a discussion of engineering education reform.

Education should help students develop their own stands on what they want to become according to their own original deep belief

Dall'Alba's article, to a great extend, answers my question about the origin of many of the ontologica and ethical questions existing in educational programs nowadays. Indeed, the most callenging task of learning professional ways of being is the integration of knowing, acting and being. When the education tries to treat knowing, acting and being as separate entities, this most challenging task is left to the students themselves, so students are confused and struggling. Though they have learned much knowledge and many skills at their specific educational programs, but they are still confused and struggling about what kind of people they will become.

I wrote in a previous post that I agree with Dewey's opinion that education should open doors and developing connections for the students. I gave a personal example in that post that my Electrical Engineering education didn't lead me to be an electrical engineer, but it connected me to Purdue ENE, so it's not a failure of my EE education to not make me as an electrical engineer. However, now I realize my EE education actually only gave me some knowledge and skills, it was myself struggling to integrate what I know and what I want to become. It is the integration of knowing and being which has led me to Purdue ENE.

After re-thinking all that we have read and my own experience, I want to put "what is education" like this. This is probably most about higher education or professional education, although I believe it also has relevance for other forms of education. I will further develop it in my essay:
Every students as human beings, as Heidegger says, faces lots of possibilities or possible ways to be, but the possibilities are not limitless, as Dall'Alba points drawing on Heidegger. They have certain belief or direction deep in their heart which lead them to the choice of a certain educational program, but the belief or direction may not be very clear, and they will still face many possibilities in the programs. Although to bring the possibilties are also the eudcation programs' responsibilities, according to the "opening doors and developing connections" theory of Dewey, it is insufficent to help the students to press ahead into one of the possibilities to become what the unclear deep belief wants them to become. Education should help the students in the process of tranformation by help them make a choice according to their own belief.Iain Thomson interpretes Heidegger' work that "we are 'a being who takes a stand on its beig and is defined by that stand'". Education could play a key role in forming and shaping the stand according to the students' own belief, rather than simply make a choice instead of the students themselves.

For example, students enrolled in electrical engineering programs, they probably just have an interest in how TV set works during their childhood. That may sound naive, but not, that's the most powerful source of motivation--the the deep rooted belief. Then how to develop the original form of belief into the stands the students take on their being become a serious problem which actually is the most difficult task of being. Many educational programs today do not address this. Simply because they are engineering programs, they claim--no matter explicitly or not--that:"Our purpose is to make future engineers". Actually, an engineering major student does not necessarily become an engineer. There are many choices. However,by claiming this, the educational programs actually just make a choice instead of the students themselves, also they give the outcome without any process. The process--the transition period--is left to the students themselves. If the deep belief has conflict with this choice, or what they learn in the classroom has conflicts with what they will use when they become what they want to be, students will be confused and struggling. Some of them may not be able to stick to their own stand and couldn't become what they actually want to be. That will be a more serious failure of the education, rather than an engineering program does not make engineers.