Engineering core curriculum

Evaluate the controversy between engineering problem solving approaches and the natural sciences as the foundation for an engineering core curriculum. 

Parallel to the growth of the engineering science movement was the evolution of the core chemical engineering cnrricnlnm in its present form. Perhaps more than any other development, the core curriculum is responsible for the confidence with which chemical engineers integrate knowledge from many disciplines in the solution of complex problems. 

The core curriculum provides a background in some of the basic sciences, including mathematics, physics, and chemistry. This backgronnd is needed to undertake a rigorous study of the topics central to chemical engineering, including ... 

Lewin, D.R., W.D. Seider, J.D. Seader, E. Dassau, J. Golbert, D. Goldberg, M.J. Fucci, and R.B. Nathanson, Using Process Simulators in Chemical Engineering A Multimedia Guide for the Core Curriculum, Version 2.0, John Wiley Sons, New York (2003). 

The question of whether biological engineering has reached a point of having core curriculum in the decade since Johnson and Phillips wrote their article was recently analyzed [8]. 

Keywords Core curriculum Engineering education Response strategies Translation of challenges Technology Social order Entrepreneurship Design... 

Engineering core various innovative curricular structures to carry skills as a part of the regular curriculum... 

The chapter concludes with questions about the knowledge base for engineering in modem society and its influence on a core curriculum for engineering education. This chapter points to a need to re-assess the composition of engineering education concerning the way practical skills and experiences are combined with theoretical training and what is considered to be the core elements of an engineering curriculum. 

The next major paradigm shift came about with the publication of the textbook Transport Phenomena by Bird et al. (1960) znd Mathematical Methods in Chemical Engineering by Amundson and Aris (1966). These works constituted the scientific pillars of chemical engineering as a discipline and led to a turning away from older, more empirical work. Thus, the core curriculum of chemical engineering consists of unit operations and transport phenomena. 

Unfortunately, such skills are often poorly taught and mostly considered as addons to the real engineering education. Thus, we normally teach and learn real engineering in a core curriculum (often consisting of the professors favorite subjects) and then we teach and learn skills in separate comses, such as ... 

Note again that all students come to Ecole Centrale Paris after at least two years of post-high school education. During their first two years at ECP, all students follow a common core curriculum. Then, in their third year, they choose an area of concentration among fifteen engineering fields. 

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