It is appropriate that engineers are educated to understand and appreciate history, philosophy, culture, and the arts, along with the creative elements of all of these disciplines. The balanced inclusion of these important aspects in an engineering education leads to men and women who can bridge the “two cultures” cited by the author C.P. Snow (1998). In our increasingly technological society, this is more important now than in the 1950s when Snow identified the issue. The case can be made that an appropriately designed engineering curriculum today offers an education that is more well rounded than that obtained by students majoring in classical liberal arts, where technology is conspicuously absent from the field of study.

Our aspiration is to shape the engineering curriculum for 2020 so as to be responsive to the disparate learning styles of different student populations and attractive for all those seeking a full and well-rounded education that prepares a person for a creative and productive life and positions of leadership.

Central Intelligence Agency. 2001. Long-Term Global Demographic Trends: Reshaping the Geopolitical Landscape. Available online at: http://www.odci.gov/cia/reports/Demo_Trends_For_Web.pdf.

Kagan, D., S. Ozment, and F.M. Turner. 2001. The Western Heritage, 7th Edition. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall.

Snow, C.P. 1998. The Two Cultures. Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press.