1962 PROCEEDINGS OF THE IRE
Future Trends in Electrical Engineering
c ucation*
J. D. RYDERt, FELLOW, IRE
Summary-Maxwell started the electrical field on the mathe-
matical analysis path, and the field will continue to successfully ex-
ploit the mathematical method. It can be expected that engineering
will more completely take over the teaching of its own basic prin-
ciples, as engineering becomes more accurately described as applied
science. Future progress in electrical education will be built about
mathematics, and especially employ systems analysis and materials
science. Without further advance in his science base, the engineer
may be in danger of becoming an order-taking technician. Such
progress in fundamental will require the elimination of many
present-day barriers between areas of specialization.
S OME may say it started with Thales and his
3 batteries.
amber, or Galvani and his frogs, or Volta and his
But the path of modern electrical edu-
cation was really established by Maxwell, with his 1864
statement of the basic laws of electrical science in
mathematical form precise, rigorous, and so far, all
inclusive. From this mathematical research also came
the statement that light was electromagnetic in char-
acter, and the additional prediction of electromagnetic
radiation of energy at other and nonvisible wavelengths.
Thus was the future pattern of electrical research and
education set- that knowledge of electrical science
should come from logical reasoning and be expressed in
mathematical language.
By its nature invisible, electricity made its presence
known only by indirect phenomena, variously described
by the early experimenters in terms of imperfect con-
cepts of flow, flux, or force, borrowed from the field of
mechanics. With this quasi-qualitative background, no
matter how right the quantitative results, electricity
could have remained much longer an area of metaphys-
ics and legerdemain, had not Maxwell's basic statements
channeled research into the mathematical realm.
To be honest, one must also admit that electrical
phenomena, in their usual forms of exhibition, obeyed
linear differential equations to which mathematical
solutions were already available. Thus answers to many
problems in physical situations were provided to the
early investigators. In this, electrical science differed
from some other early engineering fields which were ad-
vanced by the experimentalist or the practioner who
made things work, without much use of the mathema-
tical or analytical process. On their side, it must be re-
corded for fairness that maniy of the early problems in-
volved turbulence, boundary layers, microscopic ma-
terial phenomena, or nonlinear processes not even yet
*
Received by the IRE, July 14, 1961.
t Dean of Engineering, Michigan State University, East Lansing,
Mich.
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957
fullxy amenable to mathematical statement and solu-
tion.
Following the lead of Maxwell, similar mathemati-
cally-trained investigators unearthed and applied the
methods of Heaviside, LaPlace, Fourier, Cauchy and
others to develop further electrical theory. The mathe-
matical method has continued in use, and has provided
the profession with a medium of communication and a
method of analysis, not only useful in electrical dis-
covery but also suited to the solution of problems in re-
lated fields. Thus it should have been no surprise for the
electrical engineer to aid and abet the development of
the electronic computer in logic as well as in circuitry, or
for him to apply mathematical logic to the switchinig
problem, or quantitative methods to information
transfer or communication in general.
There is no reason to believe that this continued usage
of and profiting from the methods of mathematical anal-
ysis will cease. Therefore it seems possible to predict
with reasonable surety that future progress in electrical
science will be coincident with progress in application of
mathematics to that science. In fact this writer has pre-
viously proposed' as a theorem: "That a field of engi-
neering can advance only as fast as the nmathematical
abilities of its members advance." Electrical science, a
term here used as inclusive of all applied science coni-
cerned with electrical phenomena, seems ani area pro-
viding adequate proof of this theorem. The recent rapid
advances of other fields of applied science and enginieer-
ing, as they have begun to utilize higher mathematical
methods, seems to provide further confirmation.
If this prediction of the mechanism by which we will
further advance in electrical science and engineering is
correct, then the converse of the theorem is important.
If we are to advance, better and additional nmathemat-
ical education must be provided to future mnembers of
our professiotn. As far as can be foreseen, these programs
will be well suited to students in all of the enginieering or
science-engineering disciplines, since advanice in all
fields is to be hoped for, if our science-based civilization
is to continue forward.
Engineering college mathematics will conitinue to be-
gin with the calculus, giving to the high school or pre-
paratory school the responsibility for layinig the founda-
tion in prior forms of mathematics. This will call for
further changes in ain already-changing high school pat-
tern to provide more work in trigoniometric idenitities,
I Poles and Zeros, "D-day in enginieering educationi, " I'Roc. IRE,
vol. 46, p. 1571; September, 1958.
958 PROCEEDINGS OF THE IRE
more algebraic manipulation, and a thorough under-
standing of analytic geometry. The more advanced high
schools will provide introductory work in the calcujlus it-
self, but such opportunities in the average high school
may be beyond the time scale of this paper, unless
greater encouragement is made available to attract
more capable people into high-school teaching, and
more rigorous mathematics courses are required for
their training.
College departments of mathematics may have to be
reoriented and in some cases, reorganized to insure in-
terested teaching of the kinds of mathematics desired
and needed by engineers and other workers in applied
science. Assuming such reorientation, then the college
teachers of calctulus must recognize that the engineer of
tomorrow (and tomorrow is nearly here) will work al-
most always with a computer, of at least reasonable
capability, figuratively in the next room. The treatment
of a Table of Integrals as something approaching the
level of a clandestine crib must cease, and the Table
recognized as a place of first resort upon meeting an
integral sign. The classroom development of the solu-
tions to the integrals of a great many functions can be
eliminated, and the time formerly so utilized given to
insuring that the student has a thorough understanding
of the significance and limitations of the process of
integration. This work should include a much expanded
discussion of change of variable, limits, integrability,
existence, and other areas of mathematical rigor now
treated much too lightly. Given a thorough understand-
ing of the process and limitations of integration, the
end point of any integration will then most usually be
the Table of Integrals, or an application of Simpson's
rule. The latter will lead directly to a piece of tape or a
program in the computer library, and a short time on
the local computer.
It will then be apparent to the teachers that the
treatment of differential equations in a separate and dis-
tinct course is undesirable. Just as the teaching of meth-
ods of solving a wide variety of integral forms is un-
necessary, so also is it unneccessary to teach methods of
solution to a variety of differential equation forms. The
computer will provide the answers; student abilities in
setup of the original equations, and manipulation into
computer-suited forms can become the emphasized
topics. Solution of a differential equation can be pre-
sented as a problem in simultaneous integration, and at
this point the methods and analysis employed in setting
up an analog computer will justify the presence of such
a computer in the mathematics classroom.
It is realized that appropriate textbooks and course
syllabi do not yet exist in most schools. However, if
new material is appropriate to a course or curriculum it
should be introduced and taught with whatever aids are
available. The textbook will surely follow.
So much is prologue-a part of the preparation for the
professional education in electrical science to follow. In
view of the diversity and breadth of the field served by
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May
today's electrical engineers-froin costs and studies of
new communications systems to development of erotic
methods of space-ship propulsion, from abstract logic to
gallium arsenide diodes, from transfer functions to in-
formation channel capacity, from sales to research-it
is not easy to determine the trends. An extrapolation of
present movement allows the prediction that the elec-
trical engineer will become an electrical scientist-
engineer, a man interested in the discovery of new knowl-
edge which he hopes to apply in useful new devices and
systems.
To become such he will require a thorough knowledge
of electrical and allied science as his background, a
rigorous coverage of mathematics as his language, and
methods of analysis and synthesis in engineering appli-
cation as his tools. He will not lack for scientific fun-
damental nor for ability in engineering analysis and syn-
thesis; his interest will be in the application of scientific
phenomena for human benefit. Where scientific funda-
mental may still be lacking, he will have an engineer's
ability to design around the lack.
In tomorrow's starkly competitive scientific world
such an education will be required of all who will
originate, innovate, face the challenging problems,
make the broad decisions, and reap the large rewards;
any education less than this will fit the recipient only to
take and carry out orders. Which do we select for the
engineer of tomorrow? Can the engineer afford to be
second best?
To provide the training for leaders in electrical and
applied science a college must attract the best students,
must excite and challenge their abilities from the
moment of entrance, and this cannot be done leisurely.
Included must be basic work in physical phenomena
on a broad front; at least the areas of solid and fluid
mechanics, heat, and atomic and nuclear structure,
taught at a level which recognizes the parallel advance-
ment in the mathematical ability of the student. En-
gineering schools in this near time scale will have
overcome the traditionalism which today keeps the
teaching of classical chemistry and physics in those
science departments.2 Subject matter in the classical
physical science areas is now the basis on which engi-
neering is built, and, as engineering becomes more a
field of applied science, it will no longer be logical that
engineering should turn over the basic preparation of
their students to others. A basic mechanics or heat
course, taught by a theoretically-inclined engineer will
not differ from a course taught by a physicist, and will
be much better than one taught by a graduate assistant.
Engineers today teach such classical material at the
graduate level; can we long tolerate the duplication of
effort at lower levels? While we have here named
chemistry and physics, many of the same points need
to be discussed on the teaching of mathematics, as well.
2 J. G. Brainerd, "Cooperation among electrical engineers, physi-
cists and mathematicians in engineering education," Proc. Syracuse
University Sagamore Conference, p. 78; 1960.
1962 Ryder: Future Trends in Education
The teaching of the fundamental science material in
courses supervised and taught by engineers of science
bent will provide definite gains by coordination of treat-
ment with later engineering courses. As an example, a
new approach to mechanics will be required. It should
not be necessary for the electrical engineer to analyze
trusses to learn about forces, and he should care little
whether the forces are coplanar or noncoplanar. Work,
energy, power will be introduced with greater breadth
and more mathematical and physical rigor than has
been past practice. It will be found that learning in this
field can be expedited by resort to some of the funida-
nmentals common to all fields,3 but usually associated
with network theory, namely: forces to a point sum to
zero, displacements around a path sum to zero. There
are other similar broad analogies covering many fields.
Such unification of treatment cuts across traditional de-
partmental lines, and barriers between departments
must be removed to allow such free interchange of ideas,
and free movement of teaching staff.
Electrical studies may begin with field or continuum
theory as one stem, network theory or lumped-element
treatment as the other. Field work will later expand into
fluids and other field processes, and into transmission
and radiation of energy, all areas where the partial
differential equation rules. Such unity in the study of
continua would also cut across the departmental bar-
riers of today-perhaps we are already hearing the
trumpets of Joshua before these walls of Jericho?
Network theory will be developed not only for its
answers to response of networks, or for design to stated
conditions, but also to develop skill in the application of
rigorous and systematic methods of solutioii for systeims
of equations. The voltages, currents, frequency re-
sponse, or transient performance may still be needed in
engineering application, but often these figures will be
determined by the computer after the student has set
up and manipulated the basic system equations by
matric techniques. Electronic study will be more sys-
tematized than it is todav-being recognized as the
study of the active network. Generality will be the by-
word, and devices when discussed will be largely solid-
state in nature.
In the electrical area, as it was in mathematics, we
find that what has been already said is largely prologue.
Major emphasis at higher levels will go to two areas-
systems analysis and synthesis, and solid-state phenom-
ena or materials theory. A third, but less important,
area will employ statistics or statistical mechanics in
the study of noise, random phenomena, and the informa-
tion capacity of communication systems.
The study of a system, as contrasted with the "iso-
lated machine" concept of an earlier day, probably be-
gan as a formal discipline with the interconnection of
components or machines for control purposes three dec-
I H. E. Koenig and W. A. Blackwell, 'Electromechanical Systetn
Theory," McGraw-Hill Book Co., Inc., New York, N. Y., 1961.
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959
ades ago. With such interconnection the transienit per-
formance was at the heart of the study; the steady state
so avidly studied in an earlier day is now seeni as only anl
occasional end-point of a transient. The popularization
of the LaPlace transform and the fundamental work oIn
feedback by Black, Bode, Nyquist, and others lead to
understanding. Thus were poles and zeros, complex
plane analysis, Nyquist diagrams, and stability brought
into electrical parlance.
Understanding, however, is not enough for the elec-
trical engineer. It remains to analyze the system in
terms of its interconnections and the characteristics of
its component parts, and here again mathematics
supplies at least a partial answer in topology and linear
graph theory. Through such mathematical methods the
analysis and synthesis of systems, regardless of operat-
ing media or type of component, will become a major
responsibility of the electrical engineer. This will require
that he once more break down the barriers between to-
day's disciplines; he will require basic knowledge of
pneumatics, hydraulics, heat transfer, thermodynamics,
even chemical reaction. Given the proper breadth in his
basic education, he will discover that his mathematical
training plus his network analytic methods can readily
carrv his systems analysis and design into nonelectrical
areas.
Materials science will receive great emphasis in the
future educational process of the electrical engiineer.
Needing knowledge of the magnietic, thermal, and coni-
ductive processes in metals and alloys, in the past he all
too often received instruction in the mechanical proper-
ties of steel and concrete, and so he chose to study nonie.
Tomiiorrow he will study materials in the atomnic senise,
since his devices will employ lattice arrangemnents to
secuire their operative properties, anid his design of cir-
cuLit elements mav depend oni cr-ystal growth. Courses in
this area are today far from usual; in fact, syllabi and
texts must still be written. However, when a complete
amplifier or subsystem can be designed inlto a wafer of
germanium or silicon, or, when new operatinig properties
appear by reason of quantum tuninelinig of thin filnms,
there can be little reason to doubt the importanice of the
area.
Interest in broadening of the engineer in nontechnical
fields will continue. His path in these directions must
also be prepared by questioninig of tradition, and co-
ordination and integration of subject matter. Perhaps a
few walls of Jericho may fall in the areas of the social
sciences as a result. We must keep constantly in mind
that, if the engineer of the futture is to make the proper
decisions for the major problems he will face, he must
be able to live, to work, to communicate, and to lead in
a world of nontechnical but well-educated people.
While all engineering will tend toward further empha-
sis on research, the electrical engineer will look upon
this as his major function-graduate preparation for this
and other areas of work will become commonplace for
all capable of carrying on with their education. Engi-
960 PROCEEDINiGS OF THE IRE
neering will have become more fully recognized as a
field of applied science, and the electrical engineer will
have become a scientist-engineer, interested in the
search for new knowledge and in the development of
new devices and services employing that knowledge.
Engineering education in general will have blown down
the walls of Jericho which isolated its many fields, and
will have achieved a closer understanding in a technical
May
sense, through broadening and deepening of our com-
mon science base. Engineering will also have achieved a
better understanding of the relationships between, and
the differing objectives of, scientists, scientist-engineers,
engineering operators, and engineering associates.
Thus will real unity be achieved through teams of
diverse function and training, all working to employ
nature's phenomena for the benefit of man.

Graduate Study in Electrical Engineering*

ERNST WEBERt, FELLOW, IRE

Summary--Graduate study in electrical engineering developed
significantly after World War I when radio engineering came of age.
The many new scientific discoveries preceding World War II and
exploited technologically during and following that war lent tre-
mendous impetus to the further growth of graduate study, particu-
larly towards the doctor's degree. The keen competition for the out-
standing students between industrial research laboratories and the
faculties of the leading institutions has retarded the growth of the
genuine full-time student body and has enormously accelerated the
part-time enrollment for graduate degrees with the result that the
numbers of degrees awarded have increased at a lesser rate. This
has accentuated evaluative studies of graduate education and drawn
the attention to diational needs; namely, large-scale support of a suf-
ficient number of outstanding graduate study and research centers
with adequate support for genuine full-time graduate students in
order to supply faculty needs as well as the needs of industry in this
highly technological society.
THE EVOLUTION OF GRADUATE STUDY
G^ RADUATE EDUCATION in the United States
could be said to have become significant about
1876, when The Johns Hopkins University in
Baltimore, Md., established a graduate school organized
pretty much along the German- pattern of the time,
which strongly emphasized research. In his rather ex-
haustive study, B. Berelson,' in fact, distinguishes the
following periods concerning graduate study in the
United States: Prehistory (before 1876), University
Revolution (1876 to 1900), Consolidation and Stand-
ardization (1900 to World War I), Growth and Diversi-
fication (World War I to World War II), and Revival
and Reappraisal (since World War II).
Engineering generally, and electrical engineering
particularly, had very little graduate study interest and,
therefore, facilities before 1900 were few. As a matter of
fact, the total graduate enrollment in engineering 2 W. C. John and H. P. Hammond, "Graduate Work in Engineer-
schools in 1921 was 368 students in 40 institutions, ing in Universities and Colleges in the United States," Office of Educ.,
Dept. of the Interior, Washington, D. C., Bull. No. 8: 1936. See also
"Graduate study, report of progress," J. Engrg. Educ., vol. 2b,
*
Received by the IRE, December 6, 1961.
t Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn, Brooklyn, N. Y.
IB. Berelson, "Graduate Education in the United States,"
McGraw-Hill Book Co., Inc., New York, N. Y.; 1960.
whereas 124 engineering schools had an enrollment of
over 64,000 undergraduate students! By 1933, however,
interest in graduate study had become significant
enough so that the U. S. Office of Education in coopera-
tion with the Society for the Promotion of Engineering
Education initiated a survey2 which was published in
1936 and which could point to the fact that the 126
doctoral degrees in engineering awarded in 1934 gave it
second place in the science group, chemistry being first
with 590 degrees, and physics third with 121 degrees.
Engineering had thus leaped over more than 50 years of
evolution and, of course, had created quite a host of
problems concerning standards, objectives, and admin-
istrative functions. The impetus to this first growth
came clearly from the general growth of population with
the increasing emphasis upon college education, from
the general prosperity of the early twenties which in-
duced tremendous industrial developments, and from
the technological innovations that had transformed the
transportation, communication, and manufacturing
systems of the country, and had created the modern
home with all its appurtenances.
Alarmed by the seemingly boundless expansion, the
Committee on Graduate Study of the Society for the
Promotion of Engineering Education prepared a Manual
of Graduate Study in Engineering3 in 1945. which set
down the philosophy and objectives and established
guide lines for the organization, conduct, and admin-
istration of graduate study in engineering, both towards
the Master's and the Doctor's degrees. Though in
principle still valid, a revised edition was issued in 1952
pp. 313-355; December, 1935.
3 "Manual of graduate study in engineering," J. Engrg. Educ.,
vol. 36, pp. 615-652, June, 1945; also issued as reprint, revised ed.,
1952.

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