Electrical Engineering Education by Charles P. Steinmetz

Steinmetz is known for his fundamental contribution in three major fields of alternating current (AC) systems theory: hysteresis, steady-state analysis, and transients. His writing on the state of electrical engineering in 1908 seems to still reflect the current situation, more than a century later.

 

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A paper presented to the American Institute of Electrical Engineers, New York, January 24, 1908.

 

 

When in the following I dwell more on those features of our electrical engineering education which appear to me unsatisfactory, it is not that I overlook the many good points, but rather that a criticism of the few defects appears to me more important, for the purpose of urging their elimination.

In general, the conditions for a good electrical engineering education in the United States are far more favorable than anywhere else; for an electrical engineering industry developed to a higher degree and to a greater magnitude than in any other country offers a very large field of application to the graduate engineer, thus supplying an incentive to enter this profession.
Unlike other countries, where some opposition to the college trained man, as unpractical, still lingers, the electrical industries here prefer, and in many instances-demand, a technical college training for their engineering staffs. There is a tendency now to demand this training even for administrative and commercial positions. This leads to a close cooperation between the electrical industry and the engineering college. The leaders of the industry take a close and active interest in technical educational work, while teachers of engineering consider it as their foremost duty closely to follow and keep informed of the advances of the electrical industries, sometimes even are actively engaged in industrial work; and as early as possible the students are introduced to the industry, by visits to factories, inspection trips etc., which become more and more an important part of the college education. This is as it should be, and probably constitutes the strongest features of American engineering education.

While many, especially smaller colleges, are not financially strong, in general the means available to the American college of engineering are far superior to those abroad, and especially in erecting engineering buildings, laboratories, etc., much has been done.

The great defect of the engineering college is the insufficient remuneration of the teaching staff: the salaries paid are far below those which the same class of men command in industrial work, and as a result the college cannot compete with the industry for its men, but most of the very best men are out of reach for the colleges. The teaching forces of the colleges therefore consist of: 1. A few of the very best men, who are specially interested in educational work to such an extent that they are willing to sacrifice financial returns for it. These men have made the engineering college what it is, but even many of these men are ultimately forced by considerations of family, etc., to leave college work and enter industrial employment. 2. Many younger men interested in teaching, enter college work to give it a trial.
Some of these remain, but many return to industrial work, when they are forced to realize the small prospect of financial return offered by the college. 3. First-class men who devote a part of their time to the college and a part to industrial work, usually consulting engineering. This arrangement is probably the best for the college, handicapped as it is by the policy of salaries which may have appeared sufficient in branches in which no industry competes, but which are suicidal in the engineering department. Still it would be far preferable if the colleges could get the benefit of the whole time and the undivided interest of these men.

It appears to me, therefore, that a vast improvement could be made in electrical engineering education if a large part of the sums which now are devoted to marble engineering buildings and fancy laboratory equipment could be devoted to offer such salaries as to make available to the colleges the undivided time and interest of the best men in the field. The name of the donor may just as well be perpetuated by the professorship which he endows, as by the pile of marble which he erects for the college. After all, engineering buildings and college laboratories are of very secondary importance compared with the qualifications of the teacher “and his assistants.

To the subjects taught and the methods of teaching very grave objections may be made. The glaring fault of the college curriculum is that quantity and not quality seems to be the object sought: the amount of instruction crowded into a four years’ course is far beyond that which even the better kind of student can possibly digest. Memorizing details largely takes the place of understanding principles, with the result that a year after graduation much of the matter which had been taught has passed out of the memory of the student, and even examinations given to the senior class on subjects taught during the freshman and sophomore years, reveal conditions which are startling and rather condemnatory to the present methods of teaching.

It stands to reason that with the limited time at his disposal, it is inadvisable for a student to waste time on anything which he forgets in a year or two; only that which it is necessary to know should be taught, and then it should be taught so that at least the better student understands it so thoroughly as never to forget it. That is to say, far better results would be obtained if half or more of the mass of details which the college now attempts to teach, were dropped; if there were taught only the most important subjects-the fundamental principles and their applications-in short, all that is vitally necessary to an intelligent understanding of engineering, but this taught thoroughly, so as not to be forgotten. This, however, requires a far higher grade of teachers than are needed for the mere memorizing of text-book matters, reciting them, at the end of the term passing an examination on the subject and then dropping,
it. The salaries offered by the colleges are not such as to attract such men. When the student enters college he is not receptive to an intelligent understanding, for after a four years’ dose in the high school of the same vicious method of memorizing a large mass of half and even less understood matters, the student finds it far easier to memorize the contents of his textbooks than to use his intelligence to understand the subject matter. After graduation, years of practice do for the better class of students what the college should have done-teach them to understand things. It is, however, significant that even now young graduates of foreign universities, in spite of the inferior facilities afforded abroad, do some of the most important electrical development work of this country. Men who never had a college education rise ahead of college graduates. This would be impossible if our college training gave
what it should, an intelligent understanding of electrical engineering subjects.

The cause of the fault is perhaps the same that leads to the erection of engineering buildings and laboratories while underpaying the teaching staff: the competition among the colleges.
To the father who looks up a college for his boy, marble engineering buildings and fancy laboratories are impressive, and so is an extensive curriculum; the result is a rapid increase in the number of students; but it is not to the benefit of the student, since the faster a subject is learned the faster also it is forgotten, and to become and remain thoroughly familiar with a subject, it is necessary to keep up the study of it for some years. While it is a good feature to insure application of the student by term examinations, etc., this becomes harmful if it leads to dropping the subject at the end of the term. The least that can be expected from the college is that at the time of graduation the student still knows all that he has been taught during his college years. To accomplish this it is necessary to keep up the study of every subject to the end of the college course. This is not the case at present.

 The different colleges vary between the school teaching the trade of electrician, and that attempting to give an intelligent electrical engineering education. At the one extreme is the college which dropped from its curriculum everything not required in electrical engineering. Such a school covers a large ground in electrical engineering, may even consider shortening the course to three years. The graduate of such a course is a full-fledged electrical engineer, capable to ply his trade, just as a plumber or brick layer when graduating from his apprentice years, and just as helpless and useless when any occasion arises requiring general knowledge to enable him to understand matters beyond his trade. The unavoidable result of such training is, that when with the development of the industry subjects become of importance which were not considered as pertaining to the trade of electrical engineering during his
college years, his usefulness is impaired, younger men rise above him, and he cannot hope to rise beyond a subordinate position. Fortunately, the better technical colleges realize that the first requirement of an electrical engineer is a thorough general education, and begin to realize that for this purpose it is not sufficient; to require general subjects for college entrance and relegate their study to the high school: for even if the average high school were what it should be and not what it actually is, much of the general knowledge required by an educated man cannot be taught in the high school, since during the high-school years the intelligence of the boy is not sufficiently ripened for its grasp, and a review in the college is necessary.

However, even if an attempt is made to teach or to review general subjects, the work is not carried sufficiently far. Mechanical engineering, physics, chemistry, and some civil engineering subjects are recognized as legitimate subjects of teaching in the electrical engineering course in many colleges, together with literature, some history etc.; but physiography, physical geography, meteorology, mineralogy, astronomy etc., are also of importance in a general engineering education. The failure to recognize this may sometime be a severe handicap to the electrical engineer, and that in the not very far future, judging from the present trend of development. In this direction the student, as well as his parents, are frequently antagonistic, and cannot see why subjects should be studied, which to their limited horizon appear unnecessary.

 The instruction given in those branches of science, a knowledge of which is required by the electrical engineer, but to which only a limited time can be devoted, as chemistry, civil engineering etc., frequently is very unsatisfactory, being unsuited to the requirements of the electrical engineer, and, as a result, of very little if any value to him. A general knowledge of these branches is required, so as to familiarize the electrical engineer with the general problems, methods, and purposes of the science;to enable him to understand subjects dealing with these sciences.

The ability actively to practice the science is not required. To illustrate in the case of chemistry: the electrical engineer should have a knowledge of the laws of chemistry, a familiarity with the elements and their compounds, and a general knowledge of the methods of analysis and synthesis. Such a course must, therefore, necessarily be largely descriptive, and the experimental work largely illustrative. The same course is frequently given to the electrical engineer as to the first few terms of the chemistry student: general inorganic chemistry of the most important elements, and qualitative analysis. While a first class beginning of a course of chemistry, such a course leaves the engineer with a knowledge altogether too fragmentary to be of benefit to him, and the time spent in mastering the mechanism and the details of qualitative analysis is largely wasted, since the electrical engineer will probably never be called upon to make an analysis. If he attempted to do so he would probably fail. The beginning of a chemist’s training is not suited to the chemical training of the electrical engineer, and the same
applies to all other sciences to which a limited time is devoted in the electrical engineering curriculum. To give a general view and working knowledge to the electrical engineer of such an allied branch of science, theoretical discussions, especially mathematical, are usually very little needed and therefore undesirable. A characteristic case of spoiling a science to the student by mathematics is that of astronomy. Astronomy is one of the most interesting and fascinating of subjects. But where taught as a part of the general educational program, it frequently is all mathematics, and so hopelessly dry and repellent. It should be given descriptively, for in a short course on astronomy it is just as ridiculous to delve deeply into mathematics as it would be to start the teaching of geography with a course in spherical trigonometry. I believe that in the teaching of allied sciences our colleges and schools are still greatly inferior to those abroad; the result is very marked in the product of the colleges, in the inferiority of the general education possessed by our graduates.

It goes without saying that in all teaching the strongest endeavor should be made to correlate the different subjects, to show the students the close relations which exist between all the branches of science, no matter how different they appear at first sight; and to interest him by bringing home to him the practical importance of what otherwise would appear dry theory. For instance, by using in the teaching of mathematics, problems taken from engineering; to have him handle and operate machines before proceeding to their theoretical investigation; then to derive the constants of the theoretical investigation from experimental tests of the apparatus; and from these predetermine the performance of the apparatus under different normal and abnormal conditions and experimentally verify it.

In conclusion, the main defects in the present electrical engineering training in some of our colleges appear to me as follows:
1. The insufficient remuneration of the teachers, which makes most of the best men unavailable for educational purposes and is, therefore, largely responsible for the other defects.
2 The competition between colleges, which leads to a curriculum marked more by the quantity or the subjects taught than by the thoroughness of the teaching. The graduates are sent out with a mass of half understood and undigested subjects, quickly forgotten, and deficient in understanding of the fundamental principles and in the ability to think.

3. The tendency of some colleges to teach the trade of electrical engineering rather than educate intelligent and resourceful electrical engineers.
   4. The unsatisfactory state of the teaching of allied sciences, which gives instead of general view and understanding of the science, a fragmentary knowledge of some details.