As such, engineering education must provide not only a fundamental understanding of the discipline, but also prepare a student to enter the practice of engineering. Engineering education crosses the boundary between the academy and society. During their undergraduate careers, engineering students must become familiar with the principles of engineering practice and develop a perspective on the engineering workplace.
Engineers are society's practical problem solvers.
This means that they not only know how to solve problems, but they also know how to solve problems within the changing and varied constraints of cost, manufacturability, marketability, utility, and society's priorities. Students must be exposed to the issues we confront in creating, maintaining, and replacing real products. They must also appreciate deadlines, product obsolescence, limited resources, and environmental impact issues. Finally, and most importantly, engineers must accept and value their ethical responsibility to society. Builders of systems intimately involved with the lives of individuals and the welfare of society must be well prepared to assume wide-ranging responsibility for their actions.