EDUCATION: ENGINEERING THE PERFECT BALANCE
Engineers have been trained at KTH Royal Institute of Technology for over 100 years. Teaching practice has always evolved and adapted both with the college and society at large. Today, striking a balance between theory and practical experience is at the centre of the most recent education reforms.
The balance ensures that the university delivers professionals with relevant practical experience, in addition to being schooled in the fundamental scientific rigour that must underpin that practice. However, a balance between science and practice has not always been to the aim of the university.
Post-world war one KTH was a very different institution to today’s university. If you were to visit you would have found a male-dominated training college, much more of a ‘workshop’ with an apprenticeship style. Similar to today’s facility it was a proud institution in which students could expect the best training in the latest methods when studying in fields such as materials science. But it was certainly, without question, more traditionally focused. Training was rooted in the apprenticeship system for tradesmen. Water engineers could for instance make use of the special V-shaped building (known as the trouser legs) where the basement of one ‛leg’ had large water channels that could be used for various experiments. It was very much a ‘hands-on’ school.
However, after time it had become clear that the school was going to need to move towards more theory. And so in 1867 “scientific training” was entered into the university’s statutes. Theory began to occupy more space in the curriculum.
A leap forward and we find ourselves in the 1990s, and now the tables have very much turned. By this time there were very few internships being offered by industry and the practical requirement for a degree was removed altogether. At KTH many professors themselves had little or no practical experience and theoretical work and research became all dominant.
“In engineering education in the 1990s there was nothing about conceiving, there was nothing about implementing or operating, it was all design or calculations.” Says Joakim Lilliesköld, Associate Professor in Industrial Systems Engineering, and the man responsible for education at the School of Electrical Engineering. Critics were also looking to engineering colleges around the world and feeling that the focus on the profession was being left behind. In the US, Boeing the multinational corporation and engineering giant, had made the observation that they were unhappy with the graduates that they were getting. As Lilliesköld describes it “they, as well as many other companies, were not really happy with the engineers that came out of the system, they wanted to see a change in their education so that they would get more practice into it and they took a systems approach to how to re-train them.” It was out of this that the ‘CDIO’ method was born in the early 2000s. The method focuses on
four key areas that the students need to work with in order to become rounded engineers; Conception, Design, Implementation, and Operation.
“CDIO was a project funded by Wallenberg where they provided money to three Swedish university’s; Chalmers, Linkoping and KTH, and M.I.T in the US – the goal was to educate engineers that can engineer,” says Lilliesköld.
CDIO said that engineering programmes needed to have all four fundamental puzzle pieces. Additionally, it was realised that for the ‘hands-on’ aspect, project courses would also need to be added to the curriculum. Lilliesköld explains how the model was added to and adjusted, “another dimension was realised – that you had to have a progression of skills. So a long set of engineering skills was developed, you needed to be able to work in a team, to do a project plan, to be able to communicate. All of the skills of the engineer were examined.” A key feature of CDIO was the way in which it was ‘baked in’, the skills were not taught separately — there was not a project management course or a technical writing course — they were integrated into the actual technical courses. CDIO has continued to develop and the curriculum at KTH’s School of Electrical Engineering has adapted and evolved.
At KTH this most recent evolution of education started in 1999 when the first year project course began. According to Lilliesköld it created a lot of discussions as to whether or not you could present an application before all relevant theories were known. Another issue was the product focus of CDIO, in early 2000 it was difficult for many at the department to talk about products for Electrical Engineering. Then something changed. Project courses were developed in many of the master programs. In 2007, the bachelor thesis was added to the curricula as a result of the Bologna reform. 10 years later, the next step was taken to introduce a more challenging project course in the 2nd year at the bachelor level. Then, in 2013 the curriculum was rebuilt. The result was a program to create world-class electrical engineers. A course with both a strong theoretical base and one project each year to tie the theoretical courses together. Additionally, there is a course called Global Impact of Electrical Engineering that looks at future challenges and introduces students to a mentor from the faculty. As Lilliesköld says, “Altogether, students now leave with a good mix of skills, ready for the demands of 21st-century industry.
