THE REMADE FACE OF THE ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING CURRICULUM

The downsizing of industry is depleting the numbers of experienced engineers who act as mentors to the younger engineers. This will result in a lot of 're-inventing the wheel' type of work by the younger engineers faced with solving problems out of their field of expertise. Worse than that will be the instances where the optimal solution will not be found.

The present undergraduate curriculum, loaded with so many courses dealing with the computer, does not afford the graduate an insight into alternative areas of expertise. This expertise is required if the design interface is other than a well specified digital input or output. Later on in the engineer's career, the job might present just such a requirement. The result is that the engineer will not be able to consult undergraduate texts to find clues to solutions to problems.

The above two paragraphs taken together suggest that the effectiveness of electrical engineers of the future will be diminished.

On May 1, 1996 I began my retirement after a career of more than 40 years as an electronic circuit design engineer. During these years, I have seen many changes in my field. These have been brought about because of changes external to the field as well as new technology within the field.

Several months before I retired, I was given an assignment to help develop a new line of consumer products. Since my impending retirement was known, I was also to teach the younger engineers the methods used to develop this sort of product. The experience gained during the assignment gave me the reason for writing this paper.

I found that today's young engineers had all gone through the rigors of an undergraduate engineering curriculum and were capable of working in the environment that they were taught to expect. That environment envisions a field where a computer is part of every product, whether as a component, or as a means to solve some of the myriad of engineering problems that come up in a design. New engineers are enchanted with the idea that problems can be solved by the application of the proper computer program. Laboratory experimentation is left as a final resort, and the engineers are unfortunately not well prepared to perform the experiments. This does not mean that they are lacking in the means to learn other facets of electrical engineering. When shown how a design procedure for a new (to them) type of circuit follows basic principles, there is often an unspoken, "Oh, so that is where that concept is applied".

With this as an initial impression, I decided to investigate the situation in more detail. I wrote to about ten engineering schools and asked for information about the changing curriculum in the electrical engineering department. I explained that I would be writing a magazine article about this subject, and I felt that there was a problem because the curriculum requires so much work in the computer field that other courses have to be deleted. The result has been that some aspects of engineering are lost to these recent graduates.

The responses I got indicated that there indeed was a problem, and that there was no ready solution. One professor responded with a story of a microwave equipment manufacturer who had to bring back retired engineers in order to design a new antenna. After reading the responses, I contacted engineering schools geographically close to my home, i.e. the New York area. I visited the Library archives of these schools and studied the college bulletins (where available) from 1940 to the present. The goal was to compare curriculum requirements over the years. In order to make the job manageable, I looked at bulletins every five years from 1940. I did not attempt to average out the curriculum requirements for the various schools studied; I don't know how it would be possible to do so. Rather, I took impressions from the various college catalogs of a particular era to form my opinion as to what was then required of the engineering student for graduation.

Certainly, the reader should realize that some aspects of study might be emphasized because of a cluster of a particular industry near the school. Another variable might be that some professor is an authority in his field, and so the school might offer a course(s) in his field. This is usually seen in graduate departments. However, undergraduate requirements are similar from school to school.

There were several curriculum transformations during this period. In 1940, and the years of the Second World War, the curriculum emphasized drafting, various civil and mechanical engineering courses, and electrical engineering courses mainly in the power and illumination fields. Generally, there was one course called either communications or electronics. The engineer was expected to work on building large projects like TVA, Columbia and Colorado River dams, power transmission, rural electrification, etc. The field of electronics was limited to AM radio, transmitters and receivers and early air travel navigation aids. Things did not change much in 1945, because the war was just winding down and the large influx of returning veterans had not yet occurred.

In 1950, major changes began. Wartime electronic devices as well as television were entering the consumer market. The number of electronics courses and labs now increased. Pulse circuitry, as described in the MIT Radiation Laboratory series, now became a course of study as an alternate means of viewing electron tube circuits. This was later distilled in the book, "Pulse and Digital Circuits" by Millman and Taub. Mathematics requirements were also changed. It was expected that students entering college for engineering would have taken mathematics courses in Trigonometry, Advanced Algebra, and an additional course which could be Analytic Geometry, Solid Geometry, or Differential Calculus. The college could begin mathematics with Analytic Geometry, followed by Calculus, which now included Differential Equations. Electronics engineers were given the option of studying Transient Analysis or Theory of Functions of A Complex Variable as an elective.

In order to make room for these extra courses, the number of credit hours was increased in some cases and courses not demanded of electrical engineers by industry were dropped. These included some drafting and mechanical engineering. The result was that the Electronics Engineer was becoming more of a specialist and other engineering disciplines were called upon to supply the design expertise. For example, packaging and heat transfer tasks were handled by the mechanical engineer.

In the sixties, some courses which were previously electives became required. These included:

Fields & Waves Thermodynamics Circuit analysis Linear Network Analysis, and Feedback Systems Digital Computer programming Electric and Magnetic Properties of Materials Solid State Electronics

The last two courses were instituted because the transistor had entered the market and there was a need to get the semiconductor manufacturing process under control in order to increase yields and to exploit the benefits of integrated circuits.

More computer programming was added in the seventies, as well as Switching Circuit and Digital Systems.

The eighties again brought about major curriculum changes. Now we were living in an era of limited energy resources, and so an Energy Conversion course was added. This may not have delivered the expertise desired. Many of the electrical machinery courses had been dropped, and possibly this energy conversion course was intended to take their place.

The early nineties brought:

Random Processes Logic Design Digital Labs Microprocessor Systems Data Structure and Algorithms Pascal Programming

The mid-nineties added Waves, Optics, and Thermodynamics - sometimes all in the same course.

Through all of this time, courses in allied engineering fields were dropped in order to make room for the added new ones. As an aside, it is interesting and fortunate that the Humanities, and English courses were not deleted. They were modified to reflect the engineers' requirements. For example, a technical writing course might be substituted for a composition course. An economics course might be offered to satisfy the humanities cluster requirement.

Another change has been that many more courses are now electives. The result is that the student is forced to specialize even before his first job experience. In fact, Carnegie Mellon University has an experimental curriculum which recognizes that the field is too broad for every undergraduate to even have minimal knowledge of all aspects of electrical engineering. They have formalized this in a curriculum that permits specialization in several fields. Thus, the student has fewer options once a field is selected. A similar solution is found at Purdue University.

After this whirlwind analysis of the curriculum changes in Electrical Engineering come the questions, "Is the electrical engineering graduate prepared for work in the field"? "Should something be done differently"? In the remainder of this paper, I will give my own answers to these questions.

The first question is answered by, "Yes" and "No". The graduate is prepared for work in the industry that employs most of the electrical engineers; i.e. the computer industry in all of its variety. In fact, almost all products are designed with the aid of computers, and many use microprocessors as a part of their circuits. So much for the "yes" portion of the responses. The "no" portion deals with the jobs that the engineer gets after several years in the field, and the possibility of some change in the industry. If a company makes a "build or buy" decision, and the answer comes up "build", someone had better know how to build it.

As the engineer progresses from design of a circuit to be used as a part of a larger piece of equipment to responsibility for more of the equipment, the job requirements change. For one thing, perhaps the interface will not be a well behaved display, but instead might be control of a machine powered from a 480 V, 60 Hz source. There may be field problems that come about because of some oversight in the design. The engineer might have to face an irate customer. The instructions for the use of the equipment might be so poorly written that the company spends all of its profits in answering field questions. The product might be involved in a lawsuit and the engineer will have to help defend the company.

Another possibility is that of a change in the industry. At present, the computer industry is able to maintain profit and product price by offering ever more impressive features. This can go on as long as ingenuity brings us those features and the market does not become saturated, causing the item to turn into a commodity which is no different from its cousin on the shelf. If that happens, then one of the important features will be lower prices to attract customers.

Now, all of these changes have happened in the past, and the engineer has been able to cope by a combination of help from those who have gone before, and from reliance on work studied in school. This is still going on, but some things are different. For one thing, the curriculum that the young engineer studied did not provide sufficient courses in allied fields of engineering. The other difference is that the mentors have become victims of downsizing.

A letter from Dr. Daniel C. Felder of Georgia Tech expresses the view that although the problems cited above are real, the present graduate will be able to dig out the things he needs. Although I normally would tend to agree with this view, it has not been tested in today's context. It can only be tested when those with the background in earlier technology are no longer available to help out as they still are. It would be prudent to form a plan for this eventuality. My concern is for the distant future, and not the present or near future.

Is there a solution? What's to be done? There are probably several solutions, and I will offer my ideas.

First, I cannot conceive of a solution that would increase the academic load during the undergraduate years in engineering school. Various schemes have been proposed to increase the course content during that time. They include a five year requirement or a Master's Degree. I do not believe this is the direction one should pursue.

I believe that the undergraduate curriculum is providing the graduate with the background needed in today's market. It is unfortunate that the curriculum cannot be supplemented with the 'hands on' experience that was gained in the past by building 'kit' equipment such as were sold by Heath and Eico.

Some of the problems that come up after the young engineer has gained experience do not have analytical solutions. The business and law schools tackle this type of problem by using case histories. Other problems may require solutions that are not within the scope of engineering.

My proposal is a form of continuing education. It would apply after the engineer has been in the field for some minimum time. The engineer or his company may feel the need to gain expertise in areas outside of the electrical engineering learned at the undergraduate level. Experienced engineers could make use of continuing education to learn what is new. The curriculum would be broad, but offered in the form of modules that could be chosen as individual requirements' dictate.

Just as in the past, the young engineer may be able to pick up much of the knowledge he requires. However, this is a haphazard method of acquiring knowledge. Engineering schools can determine what should be taught by surveying engineering managers in industry and asking, "Can an engineer with five to ten years of experience handle the types of work encountered at that time in his career? What information is lacking? Are there courses presently in the curriculum that would help this individual? What sort of course content do you feel would be necessary to make this engineer effective?"

The intent here is not to make the engineer an expert in every field of electrical engineering. Rather, the goal should be to give the engineer enough insight so he can design simple circuits when the time arises, deal effectively with vendors when more complex designs are required, and be able to advance the engineering department's interests. The course material should teach the engineer design procedures for commonly encountered circuits. It should teach the application of components that may not be at the leading edge, but are still encountered. Magnetics and filter design come to mind here. It should also teach about those products and systems that are in everyday use. The products are probably built in high volume, and so costs have been tightly controlled. The course material would be given as lectures both by people who have been in the field where they have encountered and solved problems and by members of the engineering school staff in order to provide a sound analytical basis for the subjects discussed. Although this could degenerate into a lot of 'war stories', I would expect that sound physical principles would be pointed out as having been the key to the solution of the problems encountered.

Not every engineer would require additional expertise in all fields. The decision as to which courses to be studied should be left up to the individual and his company. I envision that the working engineer's employer might be the one paying the tuition for these studies.

A proposed curriculum would consist of different study areas:

Design procedures for commonly encountered circuits:

Transformers Inductors Filters, LC, RC and Electronic (state variable, etc.) Transistor amplifiers, Thyristor circuits

Products and Systems in everyday use:

The Automobile Electrical System. The ignition system is a good analog to the flyback type of power supply, while the voltage regulator gives an insight into design of other types of voltage regulators.

The Electrical Distribution System. How is a house wired? How does an electrician view house wiring? The consequences of non-sinusoidal three phase currents not canceling in the neutral can be discussed. The Ground Fault Circuit Interrupter and similar safety devices should be studied.

Standards, certifications, and testing laboratory accreditation. The advent of work in an international atmosphere has brought about the need for knowledge of the workings of The National Electrical Code, UL, ISO 9000, and the European Common Market standards activities.

The Telephone System. From the 'POTS' system to touch on what is new.

The Television Receiver. There are a large number of interesting circuits here, many of which are encountered in other products.

The Oscilloscope. Here too, the circuits are worth knowing about. I would stress the analog scope, and show how the digital scope differs both in its advances and its shortcomings.

Electric Lighting. From the inrush current of an incandescent bulb, light dimmers, to the various fluorescent and HID lamps circuits.

Medical Electronics. Various 'scan' machines.

Materials. The various materials used in the electrical industry and their properties:

Magnetic

Dielectric

Electrical contacts and the effects of overstressing and pollution. Who hasn't had electrical appliances go bad because of poor electrical contacts? It is a problem that is always with us, but is not addressed in any formal course.

Information from other fields:

Law

Patent law

Product Liability

The deposition, and how one conducts oneself.

Ethics: Very often the work of the engineer impinges on the public. If not directly, then as machinery to make the product that is used by the public. The engineer should be made to understand that it often is he who must decide if a product should enter the field in the face of opposition from marketing, manufacturing and everyone else who 'puts his oar in the water'.

Working with others in the organization:

One can be taught what constitutes the organization, which department does what, how goals are achieved, and how to get around a stumbling block.

Economics:

This could cover consequences of being slow to the market, or of going to the market with an inadequately designed product. "Insurance policies" that can be taken out to reduce one's exposure to future problems are topics for discussion.

This is an ambitious program which cannot be covered in a short seminar, thus the suggestion that the course content be in the form of modules. The curriculum could be shortened, or individuals could 'pick and choose' the topics that need reinforcement. As long as there is good reason to expect that some subjects will be absorbed by the engineer 'on the job', they should not be part of the individual's course of study. The problem is that many industries are so insulated from the rest of the field that there may not be peers to teach these topics to the young engineer. It may be a case of the 'blind leading the blind'.

It is recognized that this group of courses in not optimum. Once input from engineering managers and engineers in the field is obtained, it could be used to fine tune the above proposed curriculum and to arrive at a post neophyte curriculum.

I have structured the curriculum as a voluntary one. It is possible that a more formal arrangement can be arrived at. At present, the Professional Engineer's License brings little benefit to the engineer not self employed. Perhaps the P.E. License could be turned into a certificate of basic competence in the field, and a requisite for retaining that license would be continuing education. One result would be that the engineer who has the P.E. would have marketable credentials.

In my research for this paper, I received information from, Carnegie Mellon University, Georgia Institute of Technology, Purdue University, and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

I gathered material by visiting the library archives at, City College of New York, Columbia University, Hofstra University, New York Institute of Technology, and Polytechnic Institute of New York.

I was given editorial assistance from my family, and from my collegues, Jack Brett, Lawrence Ruby, and James Pearse. They gave me an opportunity to sound out my ideas.

To them, and others who helped me, I offer my thanks.

 Jacob Millman, Herbert Taub, Pulse and Digital Circuits (New York: McGraw Hill, 1956)  Robert M. White et al, A New Undergraduate Curriculum, diss., Carnegie Mellon University, (Pittsburgh: Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, 1995).  Stephen W. Director, Fellow, IEEE, Pradeep K. Khosla, Fellow, IEEE, Ronald A. Rohrer, Fellow, IEEE and Rob A. Rutenbar, Denior Member, IEEE, "Reengineering the Curriculum: Design and Analysis of a New Undergraduate Electrical and Computer Engineering Degree at CArnegie Mellon University," Proceedings of the IEEE Vol. 83, No. 9 (September 1995): 1246-69.

 Stephen W. Director and Chris Hendrickson, "An Assessment of the Carnegie Mellon Electrical and Computer Engineering Curriculum," The Interface (The Joint Newsletter of the IEEE Education Society and the ASEE Electrical Engineering Division) November 1995 Number 3 (November 1995): 1-4.

 Personal letter from David A. Landgrebe, Professor and Acting Head, Purdue University, School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, January 9, 1996

 Personal letter from Dr. Daniel C. Fielder, (Professor Emeritus) Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia 30332-2901, February 26, 1996