Engineers as Problem-Solving

n 1902, David Starr Jordan, President of Stanford Uni-versity, remarked: “There are very many things be-sides engineering [that] go into the making of a real engineer” [5]. Over a century later, in 2005, Charles Vest, President of MIT, ad-monished the attendees of the Na-tional Academy of Engineering’s “Engineer of 2020” National Edu-cation Summit [15]: “As you develop the concept of a new curriculum and new pedagogy, as you try to at-tract and interest students in nanoscale science, large complex systems, product de-velopment, sustainability, and business realities, don’t be tempted to crowd the humani-ties, arts, and social sciences out of the curriculum. The integral role of these subjects in U.S. engineering education differentiates us from much of the rest of the world. I be-lieve the humanities, arts, and social sciences are essential