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My reaction to the concept of the Missing Basics:
In ‘The Missing Basics’ video, Professor Goldberg analyzes the inability of engineers to solve ‘real world’ problems. The video starts with Professor Goldberg criticizing engineers for not possessing several essential ‘skills’ that are required in modern day workspaces. He says that engineers are not ‘people persons’ and lack communications and conceptual skills. At first these remarks seemed a bit crude to me but after a significant amount of thinking, I realised that most engineers definitely lacked knowledge of the ‘missing basics’. Professor Goldberg explained the importance of an interdisciplinary engineering education which requires certain skills which he refers to as the missing basics. The basics of engineering are conventionally thought to be just mathematics and science but I liked the idea of developing critical, communication and creative thinking skills. From my perspective, these skills would definitely enable engineers to broaden their horizons. Being innovative and expressive is definitely as important as knowing calculus and mechanics. The cold war system of engineering education is unquestionably obsolete and needs to be replaced with a more appropriate modern system that teaches engineers to be more than just specialists in a particular field. An all round holistic development is required to live up to the expectations of the modern world. I unfeignedly believe that the engineering curricula require more of hands on approach rather than more of science and math classes. To prepare for a real world job, engineers need to be trained and given some hands on experience. The video also mentions the fact that most engineers don’t experience the ‘joy of engineering’ and that these two words are rarely used in a sentence together. I totally agree with Professor Goldberg and this was one of the reasons in originally wanted to join the iEFX program. The iEFX’s version of the cold war cliché also caught my attention. Instead of taking pride in student’s failures, the concept of students helping out each other seems to be much more suitable for learning. This is also a good opportunity for students to learn how to work in teams and develop some leadership skills. Moreover, this way we can experience the joy of being in a community and improve our questioning and problem solving skills by working together as a team. Professor Goldberg also made a compelling point about social connectedness and being category creators rather than category enhancers. His advice to always keep learning also appealed to me. After watching the video (several times), I realised that the knowledge of the missing basics is vital for students to become broad and deep learners with the essential balance of qualitative and quantitative skills that are required for being good engineers. The concept of the ‘missing basics’ would definitely help every engineer to experience the joy of engineering.
In order to be a better engineer, I feel that I need to develop the following three skills during this semester:
1. Creativity:
“The scientist merely explores that which exists, while the engineer creates what has never existed before” – Theodore Von Karman (Taken from the missing basics video)
Engineering is an intellectual challenge that requires a great amount of vision and application of knowledge. It is a creative and challenging profession. For these reasons, i believe that i should work towards being a more creative person. It would help me in any challenging circumstances. The ability to visualize and draw is certainly important for any good engineer.
2. Communication Skills:
As Professor Goldberg said, engineering is a ‘people profession’. It is a team sport performed by and for the people. Having good communication skills would enable me to work efficiently in a team. The iLaunch taught me several important things about communication and teamwork. Better people skills would also boost my entrepreneurial abilities and help me become a ‘team player’.
3. Questioning Skills:
Better questioning skills would help me become more confident and would make me more aware of my coursework. It is also a key element for better communication skills.
I don’t exactly have a concrete action plan for developing the above skills, but from my perspective all of the three skills are closely knitted together. I believe that making small changes in my everyday life would greatly help me in attaining and sharpening these skills. Small things like meeting and interacting with new people, being more inquisitive about my surroundings and passionately doing my coursework would greatly influence my personality. The iEFX program would definitely also be beneficial for developing these skills.
It is tough to set a due date but all I can say is that I would certainly have all of these skills (and hopefully several more) by the end of this semester.
