After learning how the British engineering program has been installed in their society and also how the French ended up developing their way of training professionals, it is only natural that I picked out all of the best methods each country had established. From doing so, I concluded that it is unfortunate Britain and France can not collaborate their styles of educating to create one outstanding school for engineering.
Although I, of course, already have a bias opinion of Cal Poly because I am a Cal Poly student, I concluded that Cal Poly’s engineering program is definitely an exception to the other engineering schools in the United States and one of the schools closest to achieving a combination of the two different methods Britain and France designed. Cal Poly could, in fact, be described or seen as a happy medium of Britain and France’s engineer programs.
Jean-Louis Barsoux explains in her article, “Leaders for every Occasion” that “in France, engineering education does not play second fiddle to medicine, law or architecture - it is the recognized way to the top” (Barsoux 26). And George Page describes the SARTOR approach and how Britain emphasizes work experience as being the key to success. The two very different pathways to an engineering career explain why an occupation as an engineer is seen and has been installed very differently in both regions. In France, it is looked upon as an honorable goal and the US would compare an engineer’s merits earned as an equivalent to obtaining your Masters degree. The simple fact Barsouxs’ article is actually titled “Leaders for Every Occasion” speaks for itself. The French look upon engineers with very high regard.
After reading how prestigious France’s Polytechnic school is it is so fascinating to read what Page has to say about the steps to take for applying to become a chartered engineer. In Britain, any school that a possible employer’s candidate might have attended means nothing to the employer. “The application form will want a statement of where they have trained and what jobs they have had since graduation” (Page 166).
Cal Poly’s engineering program definitely takes from both what the French and British value as important. The overly used mission statement, “learn by doing” seems to adhere to what the British would desire while the 4-5 year program closely resembles the French’s basic layout. What is different about France’s 5 year program, however, is that the student doesn’t declare his or her concentration until their last year while Cal Poly, of course, makes their students decide right away; France definitely has the more appropriate timeline of when to declare a concentration. But, Cal Poly’s commonly stated “Learn by doing” mission statement speaks to any British employer’s heart and Cal Poly’s engineer information page on their main website declares that Cal Poly “engineers are highly sought by industry because they are known to "have two feet on the ground and two hands on the problem"” (Calpoly.edu).
It is hard to understand Britain’s idea of what status an engineer carries in their society and how they believe becoming an engineer is best formulated, but it makes sense that we in the United States would agree and relate to France’s method since it was, in fact, the Polytechnic school that the United States was inspired by.
To speak to your comment on the misfortune that is the lack of collaboration between France's and Britain's systems of engineering education, I feel it is particularly salient in this class include the historical perspective on why this might have come about. The history of the complementary developments of engineering in these two countries (i.e. craftsmanship versus theory) are shaped to some extent by the political relations between those countries. In this regard, I agree with the view held by technical ‘realists’ as Terry Shinn calls them, in his article Pillars of French Engineering. Shinn states that these ‘realists’ believe that “technology is the negotiated outcome of the cultural, economic, political and social interactions” (135). I would like to extend this quote to encompass international relations, which would then put us at the topic of this course: global engineering. While I am no expert on the international relations between France and Britain, my intuition tells me that their differences in engineering are somehow a reaction to the other country and the rise of the concept of the nation-state, which dictates the self-definition of a country as we conceive it today and its characteristics and membership (i.e. its citizenry). In short, perhaps the complementary relationship between these two countries may have come about from the need or desire to be what the other was not.
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