Education for Electrical Engineering

Thirty years ago an underduate program in electrical engineering consisted chiefly of studying the design and operation of the electrical devices--then relatively few--that were in use at the time. The program included subjects on generators, motors, transmission systems, telephone and telegraph systems, radio, and electric batteries. An average graduate was considered to be adequately equipped to serve society in the entire electrical field. Whenever a new invention was reduced to practical use another subject was merely added to the curriculum. When the curriculum became too crowded for a student to finish it in four years, the concept of options was introduced. Under that concept the undergraduate specialized in one branch of electrical engineering. At graduation he was equipped to serve society in his own field, but was usually not well informed in other fields. He had a tendency to shy away from the other branches of electrical engineering. In more recent years there have been proposals to subdivide undergraduate options into even finer structures in an attempt to supply the needs of vastly diversified electrical industries.