Major redesign . Until recently, it would have seemed laughable to link the two phrases. Indeed, engineers pursuing advanced degrees have always had to specialize, taking classes in ever more-rarefied branches of the engineering staples math, chemistry, and physics. But over the past several years, the academy has seen something of a revolution. Graduate programs once reputed to turn out antisocial brainiacs now offer a wide range of cross-curricular courses in areas such as business management, communications, and medicine.
Some classes even encourage social responsibility.
The goal is to train an entirely new breed of renaissance engineer. One major reason for the change is simply that companies demand it. You can have great ideas, but if you can't communicate them effectively, they don't matter. Indeed, General Motors needs such engineers so desperately that it sends teams of recruiters to graduate programs that teach their engineers how to design marketing and customer-service campaigns as handily as automotive systems. Burns and other corporate engineers say that underlying this change in need is a radical shift in the very concept of engineering.