Today, American industry competes globally. As these examples show, the context today is radically different from what it was 50 years ago or even 10 years ago. That is, context is changing too rapidly to be considered constant during a 40-year career. Once again, it is all a matter of time constants. That is probably the most important question facing electrical engineering education today.
Different people have different ideas.
One idea is to ensure that students have a greater classroom exposure to various contexts. The traditional way of doing this is a liberal arts education. However, engineers also need their science base, and in addition they need the engineering approach to problem solving, which liberal arts programs do not usually supply. Perhaps what is needed is a new form of liberal arts education, with a much heavier dose of many sciences, along with some engineering experience. Or perhaps what is needed is a system where engineering is a professional, graduate program open only to graduates of a liberal arts program.