ASABE Technical Library - Abstract
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Integration of Engineering Academic Programs into a Single Curriculum through Educational Cycles
Published by the American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers, St. Joseph, Michigan www.asabe.org
Citation: Paper number 028011, 2002 ASAE Annual Meeting . (doi: 10.13031/2013.9240) @2002Authors: Marco T. Arellano
Keywords: Curriculum assessment, Curriculum design methodology, Engineering education, Engineering education cycles, Unified engineering career proposal
Engineering is a multidisciplinary profession serving an increasing demand for competent engineers
in varied fields of specialization. Efforts to meet such requirements have contributed to a large range of
separate academic programs being offered.
Undergraduate curricula, pursuing early specialization, have had pernicious effects regarding the scope and
knowledge demanded by each course, on employment, research, and engineering consolidation as a sole
profession. Particularized undergraduate career curricula are not a substitute for practice and graduate studies,
which are by far the most appropriate means for engineers to acquire specialized skills.
Along with labor market and industrys need for highly-skilled engineers, there also is the demand for lower
rank professionals at auxiliary and assistant or intermediate level. The university has limited itself to the higher
levels of scientific and technological teaching, while an extensive system of technical schools attends to
intermediate levels. There are neither links nor continued and progressive education criteria among programs,
institutions or courses, to structure the higher education sector as a well-articulated and coherent system.
Two meaningful objectives orientate the development of this proposal: To design an engineering curriculum to
nurse the varied undergraduate academic programs into a single one, and to develop the curriculum in three
integrated cycles of engineering learning and competence acquisition: Auxiliary, Assistant, and Bachelor
cycles.
Preliminary analysis of several curricula shows close affinities among most engineering careers technical and
scientific courses and an almost identical composition in basic sciences, in analysis, design, and engineering
systems, and in the humanities and social studies. Course selection and setting to mould a well-articulated,
sound career program will respond to pre-established curriculum planning principles.