Electrical Engineering Education Today

Education in electrical engineering has changed greatly since World War II and continues to change. There is greater orientation towards science and much more emphasis on graduate work, while student interest in electrical power as a field of specialization has virtually disappeared. Student participation in research conducted at a highly sophisticated level has become a major element in the training at the Ph. D. level, and the Ph. D. degree has come to symbolize the electrical engineer with superior technical training. Faculty members in electrical engineering departments have available rewarding and stimulating opportunities such as never before existed. Generous research support is available, there are numerous opportunities for consulting, and the services of professors are in demand for government advisory committees, membership on boards of directors, etc. Educational institutions with strong graduate programs in electrical engineering are becoming centers for the development of growth industries. They are therefore important economic influences in the industrial world. In summary, our universities today are turning out young electrical engineers far better equipped to meet the new challenges that are ahead of them than they did in the period before World War II. Concurrently the importance in today´s world of the electrical engineering departments and faculties of our better schools is high, and is growing steadily.