Reflections on the influence of Wrld War II on e lectrical engineering education in the United States, 1925- 1955

Abstract

There is little doubt that World War II reshaped electrical engineering education in the United States. Having watched physicists outperform electrical engineers in wartime radar laboratories, prominent educators overhauled the EE curriculum by introducing more mathematics, science, and electronics after the war. A leader of this movement was Frederick E. Terman, head of the Harvard Radio Research Laboratory (RRL) during the war and later Dean of the School of Engineering at Stanford University. Terman believed that the increased government and military sponsorship of research after the war raised the "intellectual level of electrical engineering on the campus." Recent studies have supported Terman's assessment that the large infusion of research funds through such post-war agencies as the ONR, NSF, and the Joint Services Electronics Program played a key role in creating the present EE research and graduate education programs in the United States [l].