Do Engineering: Graduating the Engineer of 2020

Abstract

The world needs engineers more than ever today. The National Academy of Engineering laid out 14 of the engineering grand challenges - these challenges are extremely complex, global and most of all, need engineers to build systems to solve them. From clean drinking water to managing the nitrogen cycle, the engineers of tomorrow need to be capable of either designing systems or participating in a team that is designing systems. However, traditional tools to teach engineering stop at merely teaching students to simulate concepts - what students need is to go beyond simulation and Do Engineering to combine the essential elements of engineering to build real-world systems. The Graphical System Design approach enables students to go beyond theory and simulation and combine the elements of engineering in a semester to build real systems. In this talk, we will explore how Graphical System Design has revolutionized engineering education worldwide and is poised to help graduate the engineer of 2020 who can build systems to address the grand engineering challenges.