The Rise And Evolution Of General Education In American Elite Engineering Education

The relationship between general education and professional education is the core proposition of higher education.They are inseparable,complementing each other in concept,but in practice they often compete with each other and even exclude.General education lays the common knowledge and cultural foundation for students,to cultivate a "integrated man".Professional education focuses on technical knowledge and trains students to become specialized talents with professional knowledge and skills in a certain field.Professional education oriented to practical employment often acts as a strong one,squeezing the living space of general education.Although general education plays an important role in China’s modern higher education,it has been questioned and disputed for a long time.In addition,its concept and curriculum model are all from the USA,which lack unified cognition,misinterpreted in Chinese universities and colleges.Regarding engineering education as the research object,this paper retrospects the historical changes of general education in engineering education in the United States,to explore how general education has been universally established in engineering education in the United States,what kind of changes and development of general education curriculum has experienced,and how to serve the training of engineers.In a way of incorporating points into planes,on the one hand,the paper regards the MIT as a typical case,deeply analyzing the MIT’s general education curriculum,in total as 156 years since it was founded in 1861.At the same time the paper also observes the UCAL and Olin college,exploring the evolution of general education in elite engineering colleges.On the other hand,the paper focuses on the content of general education in the important reports issued nationwide by the American Association for Engineering Education(ASEE)in different periods,to explore the profound changes of general education in the engineering education.This paper divides the historical evolution of general education and engineering education into three historical periods.The first period is the beginning stage of engineering education in the USA from the early 19 th century to the early 20 th century.At this stage,although engineering colleges in the United States offered general education courses,they were mainly infused by the traditional liberal education and mainly followed the traditional subjects.There is no agreement among the engineering colleges in the curriculum requirements.At this time,the requirements of general education were still vague in engineering education.The second period is the beginning of the 20 th century to World War II,buoyed by war and the rapid development of science and technology,profession consciousness of engineers has been awakening.They would like to make the difference in all aspects of society including higher education,looking forward to promoting the their professional status and social image.To obtain professional status,general education began to be encouraged by engineering colleges,for which they strengthened the general elements in general education curriculum,established a broad consensus with the essential status of general education.The third period is after World War II until now,when the status of engineering profession has been fairly stable in the society,the external demands for promoting their profession status gradually have been given away to the internal discourse of improving the quality of education.On the one hand,the development of general education is to respond to the external society’s doubts on the quality of engineering education.On the other hand,the general education curriculum has been under the control of the mission and the structure of colleges and universities,and the education idea,the academic level of elements,and its development has been surrounded two contradictions,the balance in the depth and breadth and the fusion of general education and engineering education,which had influenced the curriculum structure,numbers,content and orders,etc.The paper noticed that in different types of colleges and universities,the characteristics of general education curriculum varied.Finally,this paper responded to the role and significance of general education to engineering education.Externally,general education,as a symbol of elite culture of liberal education,is an important field in the competition of profession status in the United States.Internally,general education,pursuing "broad knowledge base",provides a more solid and broad knowledge foundation for the training of engineering talents,and provides guidance for students’ future career development and life.It is also the key content to improve the quality of engineering talents cultivation.Moreover,this paper analyzed the influencing factors and interactive paths of the changes of general education curriculum in the history of engineering education in the United States,so as to explain why general education can realize the iterative renewal of ideas and curriculum in the complex interaction internally and externally.