Are Universities Preparing Engineers for Industry?

Engineering in industry is very different to research. Fact. Most engineers are involved in building things or manufacturing rather than research and technological innovation. And where we do innovate or invent we don’t implement it as well as we could… 

“Our research is world class, but we need to be better at taking our great scientific research and applying it,”

David Willets, Minister for Universities and Science (EngineeringUK Report 2014)

But even though this is known and understood, an informal survey carried out by Engineering Leaders (a group here on LinkedIn) demonstrated a widely viewed trend - that university engineering courses are still very research and innovation based and not representative of the skills engineers need on projects in industry.

Preparing for the Real-world

The real-world is very unlike a laboratory environment or a college campus. It is ever changing, politically motivated and involves more than just people we like or at least understand (engineers all tend to have similar mind-sets…). The real-world is very broad.

With this in mind though it is interesting that universities do not appear to be preparing students for the real-world. Many engineering courses are very technical, very specialist and not always up-to-date with the latest thinking or practices. Its like the world has evolved and universities haven’t noticed!

Preparing for Excellent Projects

Graduates come out of university expecting to innovate and invent the future – we did. It was the first lecture we sat in on our first days at university where we sat and listened to a senior member of the faculty explain that we were the engineers who would invent the future. And that pretty much set the pace for the next three years. If all engineers are being training in this way its no wonder they are unprepared for the industries where most of them end up.

Delivering applied engineering is more than just technology. In fact in terms of application engineering and technology can be considered separately; engineering needs to be broken out of the technology mind-set and demonstrated as a systematic approach to a problem as much as a scientific field.

Delivering applied engineering is more than just theory. Building a bridge or re-signalling a railway incorporates a large practical element covering everything from construction works to materials lists – all of which come under the umbrella of engineering.

Delivering applied engineering is more than science. A project environment is made of a diverse range or roles and the people who fill them – understanding management, continuous improvement, leadership and human behavior is just as valuable as understanding how to design or build something. Interpersonal skills and teamwork are inferred from group work but not explicitly studied – these help bring a project team together, and in an introverted, heads-down world like engineering, critical.

Recommendations

Academia needs to build more expansive links with industry and bring a grounded industrial engineering approach to its courses – it needs to develop the desire in its undergraduates to be at the forefront of practical engineering as well as research.

There are those who will say that this is what apprenticeships are for – but they don’t produce enough engineers, trained to the same level or as intensely as universities do. Moreover, apprenticeships don’t deal with the cutting edge research or science – this is the future of the profession. Most of this article appears to be saying get rid of this stuff but that’s not the point – the point is to enhance the cutting edge with a practical element that improves its chances of coming into being. If we can make projects and manufacturing more innovative and advanced at a fundamental level we can expand our horizons and push the leading edge even further forward.

And if we can produce graduates with the skills to excel in project delivery and practical engineering we can give a real boost to industry and produce some dynamic, exciting applications.