from DECWORLD the company newspaper, July
1983
On receiving the 1982 Founders Award from the
National Academy of Engineers, Ken Olsen spoke on the subject of
engineering education at the organization's annual meeting. (The
Academy of Engineers was formed to examine questions of science
and technology at the request of the federal government.)
"I have a vested interest in engineering. It
is the profession I love, and the one of which I have been a
member for more than thirty years. Because I love it so much, I
worry about what is happening to our engineering education.
Ken
Olsen, president
"I was too young to study engineering or
science in the 1930s. But after the war, I had contact with some
of the physicists from the old school.
"They had
gone into science because they loved it, not to make money at
it. They learned to use machinery, blow glass, because they
loved science. They believed they could learn anything they
didn't know ,,, and they were fun to be with because of their
knowledge and interest in the physical world.
"Since then, the physicist has specialized in
high and low-energy particles and left the generalist part to
electrical engineers who are now studying computer science. I
hope mechanical engineers take over or we will miss something we
used to have. Our
biggest weakness and hardest-to-find people are those who
understand anything physical.
"years ago when people went to college, they
were told, "We are not going to teach you what you need to know.
We are going to teach you to learn. You come here to learn how
to learn." I think we have forgotten that. Today, we try to
expose students to everything. We even teach all we know about
computers and call it a science. We have lost all of the
inquisitiveness to keep learning.
"If ever we needed to teach people to
continue learning it is now! We have a student in school for
four or six years, or maybe eight. If he starts work at 25 and
retires at 65 or 75, he has 40 or 50 years of work. Most of the
learning ahs to be during his working career. If we don't teach
a student to learn after he is out of school, there is no way
are we going to take him back every few years and retread him.
Learning has to be continuous and forever.
"I have a vested interest in computers. I
love them. They make great tools for teaching, for
communications, for defining problems and for learning. But
there are some problems with computers in education, and we saw
some of this with the calculator.
"When we all used slide rules, we always knew
the significance of the precision of our measurements. You
always had to keep in mind how many digits were significant and
where the decimal point was. All of that has disappeared. The
calculator relieves the student of the need to understand
mathematical functions. They'll be fine, as long as the battery
holds out.
"Is our successful application of high
technology to everyday life really destroying the desire to
learn by making learning unnecessary? Is technology providing
instant effortless learning without requiring the passionate
involvement of the student?
"Now those of us who are involved with
education and in the supervision of engineers have a tremendous
responsibility. We have to make sure we have the people to carry
on and build the things we want and need."