New Identity of Engineering in 21st Century: Social Responsibility and Sustainability in Engineering Education.

For many decades, engineers have been portrayed as highly skilled individuals who have the finesse to tackle the most complex technical problems in the utmost practical manner. They have been the ones with the aptitude to navigate economic and technological constraints to provide systematic solutions for corporations facing struggles in their profit generation and R&D endeavors. Engineers, therefore, are characterized as problem solvers and utility maximizers. In alignment with this perspective, engineering education is evolved around imparting technical knowledge, demonstrating disciplinary practices, and educating students on problem-solving skills. Even though all the skills mentioned are still relevant; by themselves, these sets of skills are not sufficient.

Engineers are no longer perceived as mere technical employees in today’s socio-economic systems. They are envisioned to be “socially conscious problem solvers” and key economic architects for future generations. In alignment with these expectations, societies anticipate a shift in the traditional trajectory of engineering discipline through restructuring engineering education, enabling future generation engineers to connect better with their communities and devise society-centered solutions. Declining or delaying acting to meet these expectations can only lead to the deterioration of engineers’ function in society and worsen their image in the public’s eyes, which we have already started witnessing some of the consequences. Engineers become the target of accusations such as lack of ability to design society-oriented solutions and neglecting the balance between the use of natural resources and the environment’s ability to regenerate. Instead of problem solvers, they are painstakingly depicted as the cause of the very problems they are primarily trying to solve. Therefore, we must foster the change and support creating the new identity of engineering through state-of-the-art curriculum-building.

A modern education system, therefore, should be the reflection of preserving the natural resources while advancing the current technologic state of the civilization. It should focus on structuring a philosophy on utilizing regenerative actions to ensure sustained development in a prolonged manner while conserving the social, cultural, and natural heritage of societies. It should be centered around infusing sustainability, conservation, resource management, socio-economic impact, and corporate social responsibility concepts into engineering classes. It must account for the ability to balance shareholders’ revenue generation expectations while addressing society’s sustainability and environmental preservation goals [1]. Consequently, it should be envisioned as a teaching medium that enables scholars to disseminate the importance of the social-cost analysis into the engineering discipline as a utility maximization construct and as a core competency. Nonetheless, there are still some resistances against this perspective.

The primary source of the opposition to change is originated from the belief that engineers should be putting more hours into perfecting hard skills rather than focusing on any other educational motive, even if it is at the expense of students’ soft skill development. This perspective is faulty and unaligned with the reality of the modern world. Also, it is not a good reflection of what the proposed transformation is all about. The attempt to transform the engineering curriculum is not simply a desire to abandon the hard skills or halt the technical development of engineering pupils. Instead, it is the idea of liberating engineering from a sole standing technical concept to a notion that embodies a balanced fusion of hard and soft skills. Even though it may seem arduous, this can be achieved via imbuing the current curriculums with modern socio-economic philosophies and teachings of sustainability practices. For instance, through leveraging online learning platforms and electronic personal knowledge repositories, students’ exposure to previously mentioned concepts can be increased [2]. This will give them the opportunity to tackle a series of problems, handle ethical dilemmas, and exercise sustainable development scenarios through various virtual reality-based cases. This will boost their critical thinking skills, awareness of sustainability-related topics, moral decision-making abilities, and long-term projection capabilities [3]. As a result, higher education institutions can reframe failing aspects of traditional engineering education and replace or support them with social responsibility themes and social problem-solving competencies [4].

It is congruently essential to address the needs of engineering faculty in this process as well. Even though the sustainability and socio-economic advancement concepts getting more popular in higher education institutions’ corridors, it has not reached a desirable level yet. This might be stem from faculty members’ unfamiliarity with relevant contemporary theories or concepts in depth. Thus, institutions should encourage inter-disciplinary course creations and research projects among departments. Not only would this increase interaction among different disciplines and promote a better overall learning experience for all students, but also enables the scholars to explore new perspective beyond their expertise area. In addition, providing seminars in previously mentioned concepts to engineering academics would be a fruitful attempt to support the proposed change. The more knowledgeable the lecturers and scholars get in these ideas, the more effectively they can design and teach the relevant courses.

I firmly believe that the engineers will be the ones who will shape how we tackle social and societal development issues in upcoming decades. Therefore, it is imperative to provide a plethora of learning opportunities on sustainability and social responsibility aspects to future engineers. We should step forward to support the change in engineering education and shape the identity of engineering in the 21^st century altogether.

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