CHANGE ENGINEERING SCHOOL'S CURRICULUM

A plan for engineering practice and industrial training for students in mechanical, electrical, civil and sanitary and municipal engineering, has been adopted by the University Engineering School and carried on successfully the past summer. This plan of instruction gives the student an opportunity during his third year to combine class room work with actual experience in the industrial plants, public service companies and engineering and contracting firms in the vicinity of Boston.

By a rearrangement of the schedule of the third year and a utilization of one full vacation and part of another, students who elect this work secure the full amount of-class room work and laboratory instruction of a four-year program in addition to at least six months of outside experience, without increasing the time required to obtain a degree. The work of the first, second and fourth years is arranged substantially as at present in order that students in the school may retain during three years and part of another all the advantages of life in college surroundings. The outside work is optional, but indications are that the majority of students prefer the new plan.

Meets Change in Industrial Conditions

The curriculum before this system was inaugurated had aimed specifically at training them men who design and operate our industrial plants, transportation systems and public utilities. The engineering enterprises, however, have become increasingly complex; these problems are no longer mainly technical, but are also in a large measure labor and management problems. The new plan of instruction fits the student to meet these new conditions.

In formulating the new plan of instruction the Faculty has been guided by the experience of other institutions where supervised part-time work in industries is in successful operation. The industrial work is in charge of a director, who is a product of the system. Each student, while doing work in the factory, is required to do weekly reports on the work carried on and is kept in close touch with his class-room instructors.

Under favorable conditions the student is thus able to anticipate and thereby shorten part of the inevitable initiation period which follows graduation.