An Engineering-Rhetoric Course: Combining Learning-Teaching Styles

Abstract

Universities originally were centers of learning. Ap proximately 150 years ago in the United States, the universities also assumed an increasingly stronger role in career preparation. The marriage of the two has been, at best, tentative and uncomfortable. Curricula which lead to professional careers, particularly in the sciences, dogmatically include a set number of elective humanities courses to provide the student with a liberal education. The liberal education, however, is often seen by students, instructors and administrators, as a re quirement separate and secondary to the goal of career preparation. Students feel themselves caught in a fragmented cur riculum. To provide a broad-based education, to motivate students toward the goal of a liberal educa tion, and to match educational needs as perceived by students, the humanities courses which have potential relevance to professional development should be modified to be included in a curriculum of career preparation.