The crossroads of Engineering education

• Published in: Ingeniería e investigación Vol. 39; no. 2
• Main Authors: Pavas, Andres, Arzola de la Peña, Nelson
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Universidad Nacional de Colombia 01.05.2019
• Subjects: engineering; engineering education
• ISSN: 0120-5609; 2248-8723
• DOI: 10.15446/ing.investig.v39n2.83786

Never before has Engineering needed more from the support of society and society needed more from the advances of Engineering than now. However, there is a feeling of demotivation among the students to pursue Engineering programs, thus other careers are more desirable such as Administration, Economics, Journalism, Law and Humanities. In the first place, this occurs partially because technology is generally available to everyone, that is, everyone is a regular user of it, thus confusing its daily use (connect and use solutions) with the background complexity for creating and implementing it. In the second place, potential engineering studentsexpect education in technology with immediate practical activities and with the minimum of formal theory, because in summary everything is so easy to use that they think it is not necessary to make things difficult with a thoroughly understanding of how to conceive, manufacture, operate, perform and of the final disposition of equipment and technical systems. Finally, the frequent outcome of studying an Engineering career could be another reason, since recent graduates often do not have the skills and knowledge demanded by the labor market and are received with unattractive salaries, in addition to the discovery that graduates of other careerswith little technical and engineering preparation use technologies and turn them into highly profitable businesses.