Engineering Social Reform

Why?

Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins and will raise up the age-old foundations; you will be called Repairer of Broken Walls, Restorer of Streets with Dwellings. - The Bible, NIV, Isaiah 58:12

In the summer after my last semester of classes as an undergraduate engineer I took a writing class that allowed me the opportunity to reflect on the education I had just received. I have attached a paragraph as well as the linked to the entire document below. During my teaching and technology class I was asked what an engineer thinks (or more why an engineer thinks) about social reform (see previous post), and I think this will shed a little bit of the light on the matter.

There is visible a great downfall to this whole progression of business. That downfall is that the upward march of progress in the global market appears to be to the edge of an unsure cliff. We want to compare what it is that we are hoping to accomplish versus what we are actually accomplishing. Therefore we need to stop teaching our students facts and formulas while withholding the dynamic interactions and conflicts within their very education. Can you train a student to solve a local problem within the frame of the bigger global picture by instructing her in how to solve a problem without a bigger picture? This compartmentalization of education has lead to a disenfranchised generation by causing a lack of coherence and purpose in our curriculum.

An Engineering Curriculum