The future of engineering

As Test & Measurement World reaches its 25th anniversary, we editors are looking to the future.

And that future resides in the young men and women considering technical careers, their teachers and mentors, and the industry leaders who work with the academic community.

Electrical engineering can be a rewarding career. You learn how things work, you solve problems, and you use your knowledge to create products that enhance—and even save—lives. The field changes rapidly, providing new opportunities for engineers to grow professionally, be creative, and make a difference in the world. For these and other reasons, many engineers wouldn't dream of doing anything else.

The engineering profession in the US, however, is at a crossroads. New technologies offer the promise of rewarding careers, and there are infinite products yet to invent. But despite these limitless opportunities, enrollment in engineering programs at American universities is flat at best.

The numbers speak for themselves. Figure 1 shows the number of US electrical and computer engineering (ECE) degrees earned from 1971 through 2003. From the late 1970s though the 1980s, ECE degrees rose steadily, and salaries went right along with them as employers snatched every ECE graduate in sight. By the 1990s, ECE degrees dropped steadily.

Figure 1. Electrical and computer engineering degrees rose in the 1980s and dropped through the 1990s, with master’s degrees becoming a larger portion of the total. Source: National Center for Education Statistics

To find out why people choose—or do not choose—engineering as a career, what employers look for, and industry's role in engineering education, we spoke with professors, students, and professionals.

From our interviews, we found numerous reasons why young people enter engineering, the most prominent being that they already know an engineer, usually a parent or relative. Knowing someone in the field gives young people the introduction they need to pursue engineering as a career. Furthermore, teachers and shop courses may pique someone's interest in engineering. Conversely, many bright students never study engineering because they don't know anything about what engineers do.

Math and science: just the beginning

Gary S. May, ECE professor and chair, Georgia Tech, said: "We have to show that engineers are normal people with normal lives with the same sorts of concerns as everyone."

Many students consider engineering careers because they're good at math and science and receive encouragement to enter the field from their parents, teachers, and guidance counselors. “I think that's a reasonable thing to do,” said Professor Gary S. May, ECE department chair at Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech). “It doesn't mean that it's the only career that's available to you, or you'd be a perfect engineer because of that. But I think it's a reasonable thing to tell students that engineering is an option for you because you have this aptitude.”

An aptitude for math and science is certainly a requirement for an engineering career, but is it enough? Not according to Professor Richard Vaz of Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI). Vaz, who is associate dean of the Interdisciplinary and Global Studies Division at WPI, said that the best engineers also have a passion for solving problems.

UCSB Professor Steve Long also cited “the willingness to do critical thinking” that makes good engineers. He argued that engineers are naturally curious and they want to know about something that's not necessarily in a textbook.

Not everyone, though, has a clear reason for studying engineering. “When I ask students why they want to study engineering, very rarely can they articulate a reason,” said Vaz. “If they can, it usually doesn't line up well with what engineers really do, which is solve problems and make the world a better place.” Some people, we learned, go into engineering because of the prospect of earning a decent living with just a bachelor's degree. (See “Is engineering a profession?”) “That [belief] won't get you very far,” added Long. He also cited “pushy parents” as another wrong reason that some young people study engineering.

Moshe Kam, ECE professor at Drexel, is working with the IEEE to educate the public about the advantages of an engineering career.

While some people study engineering who might have been better at something else, many people who could make good engineers miss the opportunity because they don't know what engineers do. “We don't see enough of the brightest people coming into engineering because early in their educational paths, they get advice that essentially blocks their way,” said Moshe Kam, professor of ECE at Drexel University and VP of the IEEE Educational Activities Board (EAB). “There is a feeling that we won't have enough people, we won't have the right people, and because of that, we won't have enough innovation,” he added.

Kam based his conclusions on meetings with representatives from 53 companies that hire electrical engineers. He also found that high school guidance counselors may unconsciously steer women with the ability and prerequisites for studying engineering into other fields because, “It's not something that women do, and that's a myth that we need to shatter.” (See “Where are the women?”)

Georgia Tech's May noted that some of the issues that divert women away from engineering also apply to minorities. “We have to show that engineers are normal people with normal lives with the same sorts of concerns as everyone,” he said. “This also affects our ability to recruit minority students. I say that from experience.”

Educate the public

Kam and others within IEEE's EAB are working to educate the public about the rewards of an engineering career. The most visible effort is the Web site TryEngineering.org. Launched on June 5, 2006, the site goes beyond electrical and computer engineering, with interviews of chemical engineers, civil engineers, and mechanical engineers. The site provides information for students, parents, guidance counselors, and teachers. It also provides a search engine for finding engineering schools. Kam explained that the site shows engineering in a positive light, showing the “can do” attitude of engineers. Using the site, prospective engineering students can ask questions of, and get replies from, working engineers and undergraduates.

Kam also acknowledged that engineering schools can do a better job of attracting and keeping good students. For one thing, he said that some engineering schools still operate with a “boot camp” mentality. “It's not that students can't cope with the curriculum,” he explained. “They transfer out of engineering because of a 'weed out the weak' atmosphere. It not only chases away women and minorities, it also chases away a good chunk of the male population.”

The media plays a role, too. Talk of outsourcing may lead young people to believe that there's no future in engineering, particularly ECE, because of today's worldwide communications. Many companies have moved manufacturing and some engineering offshore. Software engineering is the most obvious, but some hardware-engineering functions have moved, too. Still, everyone we interviewed said that there are, and will always be, many engineering opportunities in the US. Engineers innovate, which creates new products as well as the jobs needed to design and produce them.

Although a great deal of semiconductor manufacturing has moved offshore, by no means has all of it gone. “I don't think the bleak views are justified,” added Professor Fred Looft, ECE department head at WPI. “A lot of manufacturing is coming back because of quality issues. I've talked to people who have done it.” One such company is Cypress Semiconductor, which recently moved some testing operations back to Minnesota from Asia (Ref. 1).

Doug Williams, professor and ECE associate chair, Georgia Tech, sees engineering enrollment increasing, but ECE enrollment is holding steady.

UCSB's Long and Professor Doug Williams, ECE associate chair at Georgia Tech, differ on the area of microelectronics. Long tends to steer students away from IC fabrication, arguing that these jobs are moving to places like Taiwan and Korea. “You can probably count on the fingers of one hand the companies in the US that are doing much fabrication work.”

Williams, however, stated that the microelectronics program at Georgia Tech is “booming.” He sees an increase in companies looking for graduates with microelectronic experience. With that, he sees a corresponding increase in research dollars that companies are putting into semiconductors.

One person who sees a bright future in ECE is Andrew DuPont, a graduate student at WPI. “Just because you get an electrical engineering degree doesn't mean that you have to be an electrical engineer,” he said enthusiastically. “The degree can lead to many opportunities.”

Broad field

Indeed, a degree in electrical engineering can open many doors, in part because electrical engineering is so broad. Electrical engineers have taken on many tasks that you might expect people with other technical degrees to do. Semiconductor processing, for example, is highly populated by electrical engineers, but its basis is in physics and chemistry. Other areas include optics (as applied to communications), aerospace engineering, and even life sciences. “A lot of people don't realize that a lot of biomedical devices are actually electrical devices,” noted Georgia Tech's May.

Engineering jobs also cut across technical disciplines. More and more, mechanical, chemical, and biomedical engineers use electronics to measure a product's performance. “Who says you're not going to do test and measurement on a chemical process for drug manufacturing?” asked Looft. “That's a huge area. And you better know a little bit about chemical processing when you go into that job.”

Some people with engineering degrees move out of engineering jobs but stay in their respective industries by moving into sales, marketing, and management (a few even become editors covering the industries from which they came). Others move into fields such as law and medicine. Law firms, looking for patent lawyers with technical backgrounds, may hire engineers or engineering graduates and pay for law school.

Those who choose to enter the engineering work force may find that they need skills beyond math, science, engineering basics, and problem solving. We asked the participants what additional skills employers now look for in engineering graduates. While we received some differing answers, everyone agreed that communications skills sit atop the list.

No longer is it enough to design circuits and get test results. You must communicate those results through written reports and presentations. Georgia Tech's Williams noted that the university has integrated writing of technical documents into several courses, which UCSB's Long echoed. WPI has even created an interdisciplinary major or double major in technical writing.

While schools have responded to employers looking for better communications skills, some in academia remain skeptical. One such person is Professor John Orr of WPI. “The standard example is if you hear an after dinner speech from the VP of company xyz, [he or she] will describe that employers need graduates with good communications skills, good teamwork skills, and some global experience. But when hiring managers come to campus, they look for skills such as experience with the latest Cadence software release. They're looking for engineers who can be productive from day one.”

Regardless of whether communication courses are included, it's becoming virtually impossible for schools to provide all of the required engineering skills at the undergraduate level. In fact, some people have begun to question if you should be able to enter the engineering work force with just a bachelor's degree. Employers are looking more and more for graduates with master's degrees, and the number of master's degrees relative to bachelor's degrees has risen in the past 30 years (Figure 1). (continued)

At the same time, the number of PhDs has remained relatively flat. During the last business downturn, companies may have scaled back their research budgets, relying on universities to do the work. “There's a lot less research going on in industry than there used to be,” said UCSB's Long. “Most companies have decimated their research labs.” Long argued that companies are looking for fewer PhDs than they did 10 or 15 years ago because they don't have the facilities and don't want to pay the higher salaries.

In recent years, industry has become more involved with academia. That's good for the most part, as long as industry lets the teachers teach. Often, companies sponsor student projects or contribute to the funding of research labs. Students benefit from having worked on real-world projects and by making industry contacts, which can lead to employment upon graduation. Employers benefit because they can hire graduates with practical experience.

Overall, industry involvement in projects is welcome, because the companies provide equipment, materials, and sometimes funds for student projects. “If they're paying for a project, then they should have the say over the project,” said WPI's Looft. “But it can get too involved. I have companies that want to tell us what we're going to do, educationally.”

Drexel's Kam doesn't agree. “I'm sure that there are horror stories here and there of companies who donated the equipment and wanted to control the curriculum,” he said. “But I wouldn't call it a trend nor would I say this is widespread.” Georgia Tech's May agreed that a few companies want too much involvement, but he doesn't think it's excessive. Companies are, after all, stakeholders in the graduates that these universities produce.

Looft said that companies go over the line when they say “you didn't get it done” meaning that a student project didn't produce a marketable product. When that occurs, he reminds companies that a student project is an educational endeavor that may not produce a working product.

Kam takes a different approach. He argued that companies need to get more involved in the educational process. “Industry is absent from the accreditation process,” he said. He wants to see greater participation from industry so universities can produce the engineers best qualified to keep companies competitive.

Whether you think the world has too many or too few electrical engineers, you'll probably agree that engineers make an impact on people's lives every day. Engineering has proven to be a satisfying career for many. Your work makes a difference in the world. Now, go out and tell someone how engineers contribute to society.

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the following students, who participated in our interviews but whom we did not quote: Molly Finn, civil engineering student at Syracuse University, and Alexander Koulet, engineering student at the University of New Hampshire.

In addition, we would also like to thank the following staff members at Worcester Polytechnic Institute for taking time to talk to us: John McNeil, associate professor ECE; Peder Pederson, director, Denmark Project Center; and Sergey N. Makarov, associate professor.