Lifelong learning for engineers: Riding the whirlwind

Editor's note

On June 27 and 28, the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) held a workshop on career-long education for engineers. Some 25 representatives from universities, professional societies, and large and small companies met with an 11-member NAE committee (that included AIChE Fellow George Keller) to discuss some of the challenges facing engineers and how to best meet them. The workshop participants reached a broad consensus on the need for engineers to become "life-long learners," as well as on a number of general policies that would further this goal. Instead of releasing yet another policy statement or report that would be read by relatively few people, the members of the NAE committee decided to speak directly to the engineering community.

This article consists of excerpts from one such message.

A decade ago, a group of experts estimated the half-life of an engineer's technical skills-how long it would take for half of everything an engineer knew about his or her field to become obsolete. For mechanical engineers the half-life was 7.5 years; for electrical engineers it was 5 years; and for software engineers it was a mere 2.5 years, less time than it takes to get an undergraduate degree. Today, these numbers are even smaller.

Technology is rushing headlong into the future at a pace that takes one's breath away. Personal computers, the Internet, genetic engineering, advanced materials, new forms of chemical synthesis-all these are changing our world swiftly, profoundly, and, in most cases, for the better. But, the excitement and the progress come at a cost.

The changing landscape

In some specialties, engineers must update half of everything they know every couple of years, while working full-time to design products according to the best standards of the moment, which might change next month. In even the slower-paced fields, engineers must reinvent themselves at least once a decade.

A generation ago, an engineer could expect to carve out a niche in one well-defined area-automotive steering systems, say, or chemical plant instrumentation-and remain there for a lifetime. No longer. As technological change accelerates and product lines rise and fall in everdiminishing life cycles, engineers find themselves switching jobs more often. This occurs to the point that those starting out today may hold half a dozen jobs during their careers, even if they manage to remain with the same company throughout.

A large and growing percentage of engineers now work as contract technical experts. Service firms, such as Andersen Consulting, are the largest recruiters of engineering graduates on some college campuses, eclipsing the big manufacturing companies in the number of hires. They may be independent consultants or they may work for consulting firms, but either way, they don't have the long-term stability that joining a traditional manufacturing firm used to provide. In short, engineers are facing a whirlwind of change.

How well engineers can ride this whirlwind should be of concern not only to the engineers themselves and to their employees, but to society as a whole. To an extent unprecedented in history, a country's economic health and vitality depend not so much on its natural resources, its military might, or its political strength as on its intellectual capital, and engineers are the keepers of the most important part of that intellectual capital-the knowledge needed to create and advance the technology that runs our world.

Preserving "intellectual capital"

How, then, can that capital be preserved and increased? The key, the experts say, is having engineers who are constantly learning, constantly upgrading their skills, and constantly adapting to new situations. Some refer to this as "technical vitality," others prefer to speak of "career-long education," but the terminology is not important. What is important is that engineers treat their career as dynamic things which need continuous upkeep and upgrading. This demands a new way of thinking from engineers and their employers, a cultural shift to match the changing technological environment.

Some forward-looking firms are already trying to create such a new engineering culture. These companies recognize that the effort and expense of turning their engineers into perpetual learners will be paid back many times in productivity and quality. Boeing, for example, offers a variety of inhouse graduate programs in such areas as technical management and engineering design and analysis. Employees can take the televised courses singly or combine them for an advanced degree. And, as for Motorola, which has established its own "Motorola University," the company's goal is for each employee to get at least 40 hours of training per year.

However, few companies do so much, particularly when it comes to education, that will prepare an engineer to move into new areas. Unfortunately, many firms offer few or no courses themselves and provide little guidance about which studies an engineer should pursue outside the company. Firms frequently have a limited education budget, which too often shrinks even more with each new wave of streamlining and cost cutting. Supervisors, with looming deadlines and fewer employees to meet them, are reluctant to have their engineers go to even a three-day minicourse. When it comes time for deciding on promotions or on who survives the next downsizing, management often pays little attention to anything past the short-term bottom line of which projects came in on time and under budget. The message that engineers get from such companies is, you're on your own, my friend.

For most engineers, this is the unfortunate reality. Preparing themselves for the brave new blustery world will be mostly their responsibility

Filling the knowledge gap

Fortunately, even without the active support of enlightened employers, there are plenty of ways that engineers can enhance their own intellectual capital. Some of them demand only time and commitment such as reading books and journals, talking to other people at work, going to professional meetings and listening to presentations, seeking out the leaders of the field and learning what they're doing, etc.

Past that, there are more formal courses of study available than most engineers realize. They range from half-day seminars to full-degree programs. Nearly every engineering society offers courses tailored for its members. The local university likely has a variety of useful undergraduate and graduate courses, and many schools have developed continuing education programs for engineers, often with some of the classes available offcampus either televised or on videotape. The National Technological University offers a large selection of engineering courses via satellite from top schools around the country and bestows a dozen different advanced degrees, ranging from computer engineering to hazardous waste management. A number of commercial vendors have appeared in recent years with classes aimed mostly at developing specific skills.

The value of these programs varies, but, on the whole, the quality and selection are improving each year. With care, most engineers should be able to find something to fit their needs. If not, they should lobby their professional organizations, employers, or local university to fill the gap.

Some education experts look past such traditional programs and envision a system, perhaps based on the Internet, that will deliver whatever information and instruction an engineer needs, wherever and whenever he or she needs it. It would be the educational equivalent of just-intime manufacturing, which arranges to have the necessary components of a car or computer delivered just as they are about to be installed.

Ultimately, however, it won't matter so much which of these options an engineer chooses. What will matter will be developing a culture and a set of attitudes suitable for engineering in the 21st century The precise details of that culture must still be worked out, but one thing is clear-engineers must stop thinking of education as what they did for four years in college and come to see it as a life-time project.

Behind the byline

Ernest T. Smerdon is vice provost and dean of the College of Engineering and Mines at the University of Arizona. He is chairman of the NAE committee on career-long education for engineers and chaired a June workshop on this topic. Dr. Smerdon received his Ph.D. degree in engineering from the University of Missouri.

Copyright Instrument Society of America Jan 1997
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