Engineering Students Perception of General Educational Requirements
Publication: Journal of Professional Issues in Engineering
Volume 109, Issue 4
Abstract
It is commonly believed that engineering students view general educational requirements (GER) as the useless, uninteresting part of an engineering curriculum. Few students recognize the intent of GER. A survey of civil engineering undergraduates, most of whom had completed the GER, was conducted to evaluate both the engineering students perception of the GER and the effectiveness of the GER in making the students aware of the social responsibility of the engineer. Approximately one‐third of the students did not know why the requirement existed; almost all of the remaining two‐thirds did not believe the GER would have any bearing on their professional career. Approximately one‐fifth of the students would like to see the entire GER replaced with technical electives; approximately two‐fifths would like to see a partial substitution. Many students wanted to retain a GER but not because they thought it would teach them about their social responsibility; instead, they wanted the GER retained because the courses were easier and lead to an improvement of their grade point averages. The survey concluded that students selected courses because of the limited work load and personal interest. In addition to the findings of the survey, a review of possible courses of action to improve the effectiveness of general educational requirements are considered.
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this article.
References
1.
Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology, 49th Annual Report, New York, N.Y., Sept., 30, 1981.
2.
Florman, S. C., The Existential Pleasures of Engineering, St. Martin's Press, Inc., New York, N.Y., 1976.
3.
Garfoot, R. F., and Simon, J. R., “The Professional Engineer and His Values,” Journal of Professional Practice, Vol. 89, No. PP1, Jan., 1963, pp. 15–21.
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Professional Issues in Engineering
Volume 109 • Issue 4 • October 1983
Pages: 256 - 264
Copyright
Copyright © 1983 ASCE.
History
Published online: Oct 1, 1983
Published in print: Oct 1983
Authors
Metrics & Citations
Metrics
Citations
Download citation
If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. Simply select your manager software from the list below and click Download.