Engineering Students Perception of General Educational Requirements

Abstract

It is commonly believed that engineering students view general educational requirements (GER) as the useless, uninteresting part of an engineering curriculum. Few students recognize the intent of GER. A survey of civil engineering undergraduates, most of whom had completed the GER, was conducted to evaluate both the engineering students perception of the GER and the effectiveness of the GER in making the students aware of the social responsibility of the engineer. Approximately one‐third of the students did not know why the requirement existed; almost all of the remaining two‐thirds did not believe the GER would have any bearing on their professional career. Approximately one‐fifth of the students would like to see the entire GER replaced with technical electives; approximately two‐fifths would like to see a partial substitution. Many students wanted to retain a GER but not because they thought it would teach them about their social responsibility; instead, they wanted the GER retained because the courses were easier and lead to an improvement of their grade point averages. The survey concluded that students selected courses because of the limited work load and personal interest. In addition to the findings of the survey, a review of possible courses of action to improve the effectiveness of general educational requirements are considered.