Maintaining the Competitive Edge - Use of Computers for Undergraduate Instruction
Authors: Hurley Fran , Miller Mark , Podio A.L. 
Published: December 2007

There is a revolution in U.S. undergraduate engineering curricula, one marked by a renaissance of interest in liberal arts education, re-emphasis on basic education, and a new emphasis on computer training. The Dept. of Petroleum Engineering at the U. of Texas recognized its weaknesses and in Sept. 1987 designed and implemented new curricula incorporating computer and technical communications skills for undergraduate students. This report provides details of the curricula changes. The results of this 4-year program demonstrate that problem- solving skills of petroleum engineering students are sharpened through computerized education and proficient communication.

Introduction

The U.S. economy is shifting from a production-extraction base to an information-services base. What combination of petroleum engineering coursework and experiences leads to the thinking, learning, and creative abilities needed for a rapidly changing and information-based economy? Fulfilling the challenge of this question will require an understanding of the interconnection between higher education and economic development. This interconnection can be addressed through two questions:What is the need for higher education's involvement in economic development?More specifically, how can the Dept. of Petroleum Engineering at the U. of Texas respond to society's needs, influence change, and affect future economic development through education and training of students? The knowledge base of a graduating petroleum engineer is reported to have a useful lifetime of 10 years or less. Roger Semarad, former assistant secretary of the U.S. Dept. of Labor, suggests that today's graduates "will need to be retrained 6 to 10 times in the course of their working lives." Students graduating in 1991 will be practicing professionals in 2035. It is difficult to predict what professionals will need to know in 2035! Same suggestions are found in the Assn. of American Colleges' "Integrity of College Curriculum." This report recommends computer training, development of communication skills, abstract thinking and critical analysis, understanding numeric data, and historic consciousness; scientific understanding; and understanding of human values and international and multicultural experiences. The Dept. of Petroleum Engineering responded to these challenges through curricular change in 1987. Some progress has been made in these efforts, particularly in the improvement of computer and technical communications particularly in the improvement of computer and technical communications skills for petroleum engineering students. Until 1987, most of our petroleum engineering courses were based on a textbook/lecture method that petroleum engineering courses were based on a textbook/lecture method that stressed the rote delivery and ingestion of an assemblage of facts and theories. While this method of teaching was adequate and meaningful in the past, it fails to cope with many of the current and future information past, it fails to cope with many of the current and future information needs of industry. Foremost among these is the inability of the traditional approach to involve the student actively in the learning process, to accommodate the existence of information in multiple electronic process, to accommodate the existence of information in multiple electronic forms, and to use electronic tools (microcomputers, software, telecommunications, etc.) to gather and manipulate data into knowledge. In 1987, the department recognized a weakness in its program: students lacked computer skills and basic communication skills. This inadequacy occurred not only at a time when the academic engineering community was poised for major innovative change in the delivery of engineering poised for major innovative change in the delivery of engineering education, but at a time when a major complaint of industry was a lack of communication skills on the part of engineering graduates. Thus, a new program was designed and implemented to integrate computer-based methods program was designed and implemented to integrate computer-based methods and communication skills into the entire petroleum engineering curriculum. The results of this 4-year program demonstrate that problem-solving skills of our petroleum engineering students are sharpened through computerized education. The efficient program structure coupled with a sensible user interface creates an exploratory problem creation-and-solution medium where the student can pose a multitude of open-ended questions and experiment with an array of analysis and design alternatives. The primary objective is to provide a workplace where textbook material comes alive and where the learner is comfortable with the theory and the ability to communicate his or her thoughts about the process. These are paramount to conceptual learning.