Rojter, Josef (2009) Anything but Engineering: A View of Engineering as an Attractive Course of Study. In: Proceedings of the 37th SEFI Conference 2009: Attracting Young People to Engineering: Engineering is fun? Van den bogard, Maartje, de Graaff, Erik and Saunders-Smits, Gillian, eds. European University Association, Rotterdam.

Abstract

The growing reluctance of senior secondary students, and more importantly girls, to choose engineering as a course of study in higher education combined with relatively high attrition rates in engineering schools at Australian universities can be traced to two fundamental sources. Despite a shortage of professional engineers in Australia, the profession has not marketed itself well in public eyes. It is yet to find its end product and professional standing other than a subset of big science. The blurred definition of engineering as a unified profession carries over to engineering education. This paper identifies the lack of unity and ideology in educating for engineering professions as a key reason for its lack of attractiveness. It argues for a more diverse approach to professional engineering discourse both in marketing the profession to the public domain and in its application in engineering education. It suggests that developing engineering curricula from that of applied science to a more vocational basis is likely to enhance engineering professionalism and will be provide a more attractive basis as a course of study. conference held: July 1-4, World Trade Centre Rotterdam - Delft University of Technology

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