The New Frontiers of Engineering have a significant impact on engineering education. It is important to examine and debate the future directions of engineering education. I have been an educationist in the field of engineering for over twenty years. In order to meet the challenges of the new frontiers of engineering and the needs of the 21st century, it is important to educate engineers to think across different subject areas. As you can see, many of the new frontiers involve a high degree of interdisciplinary and require a strong engineering science foundation.
The new areas such as nanotechnology require engineers with strong skills in basic sciences, engineering sciences and engineering design. In the last 2–3 decades of the 20th century, engineering programs around the world became too specialized and many "soft" engineering subjects were added.
Engineering programs became too compartmentalised and students today have difficulty in seeing interconnection between core subjects. Such approaches to engineering education discourage interdisciplinarity and produce engineers with poor system integration skills. The new frontiers of education could also have a significant impact on engineering practice.
The convergence of scientific and engineering disciplines is also rapidly changing the practice of engineering in industry and the manner in which engineers function. In the past, engineers in industry frequently worked alone or with other engineers, usually from the same discipline, to design products or processes. Today, engineers in industry increasingly work in multidisciplinary product design teams that may include team members with backgrounds in business, marketing, sales and other areas, in addition to science and engineering.
Experience has shown that diverse, multidisciplinary design teams create better technical solutions. To ensure that these teams function effectively, industry needs engineering graduates with strong communication and teamwork skills. We need only two types of engineers to drive the knowledge-based economy of the 21st century.
One is an engineer with strong system integration skills to create the inventions, and the other is an engineer with strong product management skills to generate value out of these inventions.
MIT has requisite resources like well-qualified faculty, library and e-library (online journals), and an IT computer centre having state-of-the-art facilities to prepare the students to face the challenges ahead effectively and professionally.
I have a brief message to all students of MIT. You belong to a highly privileged group of students. In addition to academics, participate in extracurricular activities, volunteer your time for a good cause, have some free time to pursue things that interest you, read about the world, enjoy art and music, take every opportunity to learn about different cultures, religions and languages, and be proud of your own roots.
Being an outstanding student means much more than getting the best grades in exams. It means becoming a well-rounded person with excellent academic, communication, leadership and social skills.
