<p>sakky, your post makes absolutely no sense;</p>
<p>2) I would seriously be mortified to live in a world where engineers where demoted to the level of “Exalted” technicians as you propose. Perhaps you won’t use every last equation they taught you in Calc II, so what? Even in the purported “skills based” classes you recommend engineers to adopt, the relevant “skills” that you are forcing these engineers to take will soon and quickly be outdated as is the nature of nearly everything in the technological field. Perhaps a student in this curriculum decides to study, say, the structure of a specific type of computer architecture. The class offered gives “practical” and “hands on” experience with this type of device. Of course, no “high level” maths or physics will be required of the student because this is far too “Esoteric” and “academic”. The student learns this skills based course intensively but what happens? The architecture goes outdated, the “practical” class the student payed thousands of bucks for is now useless, and because broader topics weren’t introduced, the student gained little more than a technician’s understanding of the subject. However, what happens if you take the said differential equations and calculus courses? One, the material is very likely to be used to some degree - those engineers who are working for NASA, GE, and other high up companies use them daily, I assure you - the major isn’t preparing those engineers who’ll end up in humdrum careers pushing papers, but the ones who will be solving the fundamental technological problems at the top. In addition, even if the calculus is NOT used AT ALL, what the course did do is make you mathematically competent - it provided you with a viable toolset for thinking and reasoning mathematically, an EXTREMELY important skillset for any engineer.</p>
<p>So my question for you is why teach engineers hands on vocational skills when you could be teaching them a broad and viable skillset that is good not only for developing a scientifically competent workforce, but is also widely applicable and helps facilitate the process of standardizing the expectations and rigour of the discipline?</p>