Engineers have lots of answers to lots of questions. At Momentum, we figured we should take advantage of this resource and started a new feature, Ask the Engineers, in which we ask one question to various folks in the School of Engineering. And readers, if you have a question you’d like to pose to the engineers, please send it our way.

This issue, we asked faculty members the following question: What changes do you think would improve how engineering is taught? 

Daniel Burkey, Associate Dean for Undergraduate Education and Diversity: Engineering as a discipline has evolved tremendously over the last half-century, and in many ways our educational model for it is still back in the 20th century. Engineering students tend to be hands-on and problem-solvers; we need to have their educational process reflect that better.

Arash E. Zaghi, Assistant Professor in the area of structural engineering: To my belief, the way we are educating the next generation of engineers is the most critical issue that demands immediate attention.  Our engineering curricula and courses are too solid and prescriptive, which do not encourage, but instead suppress creative and out-of-the-box thinking. Today, we are only training our engineers to solve traditional, well-bounded engineering problems. To address significant challenges of the decades to come, we need minds capable of making technological breakthroughs.

Do you have a question for Ask the Engineers? Please send it to William Weir at weir@engr.uconn.edu