engleski

Answers to Questions are not Written at the End of the Book: Non-technical Content of Engineering Education

This article deals with actual non-technical courses at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering and Naval Architecture at the University of Zagreb, Croatia, regarding recent developmental strategies aiming to improve the education of engineers at technical universities across the world. These strategies have emphasized cooperative knowledge systems and have resulted in broader scope of non-technical subjects and courses at technical universities' curricula. Conceptualizations that have been made corresponded the contemporary efforts made by main actors in engineering education such as educational institutions, employers, independent researchers and engineering associations. While the general presumption is aimed to qualify engineers as able to act in unpredictable social environments and not only to "function" as well-educated performers – this article suggests that the implementation of reformed educational programs is limited by relative ambiguity in acceptance of content and extent of non-technical topics. Actually, this relative ambiguity which resides somewhere in-between proclaimed aims and virtually accomplished aspects of the educational reform stimulated the research of the whole process from the "students' aspect". The research is based on field observations and 20 semi-structured interviews that had been conducted through 2011. While students generally indicated acceptance of issues comprised by social sciences and humanities, some sort of disillusionment with academic curriculum's clarity is found. But more substantially, aforementioned ambiguity is acknowledged mainly with regard to assumed content and purpose of subjects which, as social and cultural "knowledge set", would be established in the curriculum

Engineering education; engineering profession; non-technical courses

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