Can't do it?Engineering education urgently needs to be "hard"

Author:Scientific network Time:2022.08.09

Text ｜ Zhao Ji (former president of Northeast University)

● At present, the training of graduate students in my country is not much different from the cultivation of academic graduate students. It can be said that it is "soup and not changing medicine". This is also the most obvious manifestation of "science science of engineering".

● Students' mentors may not have done projects in person, and even the problems in the drawings cannot be found. I hope that these teachers and students will solve the actual problems in person, obviously they are embarrassed.

● College teachers basically belong to "school gate and school gate". Although many people have the background of studying abroad and solid basic knowledge, they have become the biggest shortcomings for engineering issues.

● Different methods including school -enterprise cooperation and "dual mentors" can be adopted, but these methods must be real. Taking the "double mentor" as an example, corporate mentors must really enter the training system. But so, the problem appeared again ...

At present, the status and role of manufacturing in my country's national economy are obvious to all. Outstanding talents with solid basic skills and creative and innovative ability are essential.

However, it is not necessary to ignore that in some areas of college engineering education, there is still a knowledge system innovation and curriculum content behind science and technology and industrial development. Many university engineering education cannot fully adapt to scientific and technological progress and the development of the industry, which has led to the industry's engineering education that should originally lead to the industry. This phenomenon is particularly obvious at the level of undergraduate education.

A qualified engineer takes at least 7 to 8 years. Undergraduate education, as an "blank" of engineers, belongs to the "foundation of the foundation". If the foundation cannot be played firmly, it will seriously affect the follow -up growth of engineering talents.

The exercise of "four major abilities" lacks practical links

To put it simply, the core mission of the project is to use resource that sustainable development to create a beautiful world in the future. If the main goal of science is natural laws and natural phenomena, the main goal of the project is artificial objects. This determines that engineering talents need to have the following characteristics.

The first is constructive. This constructiveness is not necessarily just the creation of tangible objects. Making a part is a kind of construction, and creating a software is also constructed. As an engineering talent, this construction ability is necessary, otherwise the unknown world cannot be created.

Followed by innovation ability. As long as it involves creation, it must be innovative. At this point, science and engineering are connected.

The third is integration capabilities. Engineering construction is a multi -disciplinary collection. Excellent engineering talents need to be involved in multiple disciplines in order to quickly find resources, materials and related theories when needed, and integrate.

The fourth is practical ability. Whether it is the engineering discipline itself or a specific engineering project, neither is talked about the soldiers on paper. This is like swimming. Once you get out of practice, no matter how many books theory you know, you will never learn.

For engineering students, it is extremely important to have the above four abilities, but to exercise these abilities, it cannot be fully reflected by the course education. Practical teaching and experimental teaching must be fully reflected.

Unfortunately, we still have too many lacks in this regard. For example, we have faced great challenges at the moment we have been proud of.

my country's traditional engineering education emphasizes students' business internships. Although the students may not be able to become a "hand" after internship, this exercise is very important for the cultivation of the above four abilities. However, the increasingly automated project production is naturally unsuitable for students to act as practical. For factors such as security and other factors, the willingness to receive students' internship is constantly decreasing. In the context of the huge number of undergraduates, the engineering internship of undergraduates encountered great difficulties.

In addition, as an important part of the training of engineering talents, college teachers are basically "school gates and school gates". Although many people have the background of studying abroad and solid basic knowledge, they do not understand the project problems as their biggest shortcomings.

This problem is that the lack of engineering background, and to the small office is the lack of actual work experience and even internship experience. You know, when I was young, I went to the factory for more than a month to participate in the production internship for eight consecutive years. For certain industrial devices, I can control the degree of processing accuracy of processing accuracy just by feeling, but this experience is very rare among young teachers.

Excellent engineer training should not be generally carried out

As the research conditions of domestic universities are getting better and better, the output of students' scientific research papers is not the same as before, which of course reflects the improvement of the overall scientific research level of students, which is also worthy of recognition. However, from the perspective of engineering education, the cultivation of scientific talents obviously cannot fully adapt to the training requirements of the four capabilities of engineering talents.

However, the overall evaluation orientation of higher education in my country is still inclined to scientific research output, and evaluation standards also tend to evaluate thesis. Although the "Five Wei" has achieved a certain effect, the relevant issues have not been completely resolved.

The reason for its reasons is that a major advantage of scientific research is its quantitativeness, such as influencing factor, high quotation thesis, etc., which can reflect the importance of scientific discovery to some extent. , But at least one standard is provided.

However, it is difficult to consider some kind of evaluation standards that are more valued by engineering education and the ability to solve practical engineering. At the stage of higher education, due to the small scale of talent training, this disadvantage is not obvious, but at the current popular stage, the disadvantages of lack of a relatively detailed evaluation system are becoming more and more apparent.

However, because of this, engineering education should promote the cultivation of the practical ability of engineering talents. This is essential for training high -quality qualified engineers. It is worth mentioning that some high -level science and engineering colleges in China are vigorously cultivating future outstanding engineers. This training model does not necessarily have high requirements for students' practical ability, but it must have a strong foundation for science and engineering, trying to enable students to practice through practice and eventually grow into strategic scientists with a certain global consciousness.

In my opinion, as an exploration of an elite talent training model, this road is feasible, but it is not suitable for general development. Because for more engineering colleges, talent training should still be constructed on the basis of practice, or closely combining education and engineering.

Engineering talent training is facing reality bottlenecks

At present, at the point of "strengthening engineering talent training", domestic universities have formed a certain consensus, but there are still certain bottlenecks and challenges at the specific operation level.

For example, the current training period of undergraduates of universities is generally four years. However, with the development of science and technology and the detailed discipline, in the case of the unchanged learning period, it is necessary to allow students to increase the practical link while strengthening the theoretical foundation, and the operating level will indeed face challenges.

For another example, the participation of the company's participation in industry -university and research is obviously very helpful for the improvement of teachers 'teaching ability, but during the practice, how can teachers' time cost pay with their own workload? Especially on the evaluation of job title evaluation, visiting abroad can be regarded as an experience, but it is difficult to become the "weight" of teachers when it comes to corporate practice, which seriously affects the enthusiasm of teachers to corporate practice.

There is also a lack of enthusiasm. Due to the incomplete mechanism, enterprises cannot gain benefits from practical cooperation with universities. On the contrary, they may also bear certain security risks. It is reasonable to be unwilling to accept teachers and students' internships.

In fact, the training of universities in engineers is a matter of large society. Therefore, while providing internship conditions for schools, enterprises also equal to creating conditions for cultivating their own backup forces. However, it is unrealistic to force each enterprise to have this cognition. In this case, do we need to guide the enthusiasm of enterprises to participate in university production internships through institutional guidance and even legal provisions?

In addition, the training of graduate students in my country is not much different from the cultivation of academic graduate students. It can be said that it is "soup and not changing medicine." This is also the most obvious manifestation of "science science of engineering".

Can the Master of Engineering and Engineering Corporate Related Topic Research Study on Complex Engineering? This is of course feasible or even necessary in theory, but the reality is not the case -the mentors of these students may not have done projects in person, and even the problems in the drawings cannot be found. I hope that these teachers and students will solve the actual problems in person. Obviously, it is obviously it is. They are embarrassed.

To solve the above problems, you can adopt different methods including school -enterprise cooperation and "dual mentor", but these methods must be real. Taking the "double mentor" as an example, corporate mentors must really enter the training system.

However, in this way, the problem appeared again -according to the existing regulations of colleges and universities, the titles of the titles of the instructor need high -level papers and even related rewards. However, although the level of some enterprise engineers is high, there are neither papers nor awards. How should their title be evaluated?

In this regard, I strongly call on the engineering education of most engineering institutions to be "hard", that is, the cultivation of students' engineering ability, innovation spirit, and practical ability should be truly prominent. The ability of engineering problems. But to really do this, we need to work together from national policies to different levels of colleges and universities. This is also the direction of our efforts.

(Chen Bin, a reporter from the China Science News, interviewed and sorted out)

"China Science News" (2022-08-09 The 4th Edition of the 4th Edition of Higher Education)

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