Wednesday, September 13, 2006
TEE on front page of Daily Illini
An article about the book, The Entrepreneurial Engineer, appeared on the front page of the Daily Illini, the student newspaper of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Check it (here).
Tuesday, September 12, 2006
TEE reviewed in Electronic Design
David Maliniak reviews The Entrepreneurial Engineer in Electronic Design:
See the whole review here.
Goldberg’s writing style is conversational and highly readable; the book carries enough illustrative material to amplify its points. All told, it’s a worthy read for anyone thinking of striking out on their own as an entrepreneurial engineer.
See the whole review here.
Sunday, September 10, 2006
A license to learn
One of the points I make in chapter two of The Entrepreneurial Engineer is that an engineering education is a license to learn.
A common myth is that engineering involves the education of a narrow specialist, but we live in the most technological of centuries to date, and in case some haven’t not noticed, the centroid of human knowledge has shifted. Analysis of the typical engineering degree finds a balance of (a) humanities, (b) social science, (c) science, (d) mathematics, and (e) major coursework in a technical specialty.
The average liberal arts degree by comparison stuffs much into the first two categories, requires only a smattering of courses in science and math, and no coursework in technology at all. Far from being narrow, the average undergraduate engineering major has a balanced curriculum that gives him or her a lifelong license to learn. Where the average liberal-arts undergraduate is closed out of whole swaths of human knowledge, especially those involving math, science, and technology, the engineering graduate can feel comfortable picking up almost any text on any topic, knowing that the fundamental coursework of their high school and college education give them the tools to read, learn, and grow.
A common myth is that engineering involves the education of a narrow specialist, but we live in the most technological of centuries to date, and in case some haven’t not noticed, the centroid of human knowledge has shifted. Analysis of the typical engineering degree finds a balance of (a) humanities, (b) social science, (c) science, (d) mathematics, and (e) major coursework in a technical specialty.
The average liberal arts degree by comparison stuffs much into the first two categories, requires only a smattering of courses in science and math, and no coursework in technology at all. Far from being narrow, the average undergraduate engineering major has a balanced curriculum that gives him or her a lifelong license to learn. Where the average liberal-arts undergraduate is closed out of whole swaths of human knowledge, especially those involving math, science, and technology, the engineering graduate can feel comfortable picking up almost any text on any topic, knowing that the fundamental coursework of their high school and college education give them the tools to read, learn, and grow.
Sunday, September 03, 2006
Sense of beauty
Started Santayana's The Sense of Beauty this weekend. Clear thought wrapped in lovely prose. Picked it up while browsing philosophy aisle at Barnes & Noble (see here). B&N has low-cost reprints of classic texts that make building a philosophy library somewhat less costly.
Friday, September 01, 2006
The Entrepreneurial Engineer is out
Thursday, August 24, 2006
Engineering identity in the postmodern world
Andrew Fox at Philosophy of Engineering is blogging about the identity crisis of engineering in our brave new world (here). Many of the concerns of that post resonate with the themes of The Entrepreneurial Engineer.
Engineers of our times must be more broadly capable than Cold War engineers. Engineering educators and leaders of our times need to be more reflective on the foundations and underpinnings of engineering, and they must grasp the opportunities to bridge engineering to the social sciences and the humanities. The key distinctive feature of our times is the interconnection of a large segment of the world's population, the cache of data about human preferences and behavior that this network creates, and the possibility of moving from qualitative and statistical modes of reasoning about human affairs to a new kind of engineering knowledge that is quantitative and sufficiently predictive to enable better postmodern systems design.
Engineers of the Cold War concentrated their efforts on designing physical systems that obeyed natural laws. Engineers of the postmodern era will need to learn to concentrate their efforts on designing institutional facts (in Searle's sense) integrated with physical devices that serve the needs of diverse, distributed populations around the globe.
These efforts requires solid engineering metaphysics, epistemology, and a deeper concern for the logic of invention. They will also strain our Cold War notions of engineering ethics as well. For these reasons, and many more, a better concern for the philsophy of engineering is crucial at this juncture in time.
My view is that the crisis is worse than Fox suggests. and I doubt that the remedies suggested will be of much
Engineers of our times must be more broadly capable than Cold War engineers. Engineering educators and leaders of our times need to be more reflective on the foundations and underpinnings of engineering, and they must grasp the opportunities to bridge engineering to the social sciences and the humanities. The key distinctive feature of our times is the interconnection of a large segment of the world's population, the cache of data about human preferences and behavior that this network creates, and the possibility of moving from qualitative and statistical modes of reasoning about human affairs to a new kind of engineering knowledge that is quantitative and sufficiently predictive to enable better postmodern systems design.
Engineers of the Cold War concentrated their efforts on designing physical systems that obeyed natural laws. Engineers of the postmodern era will need to learn to concentrate their efforts on designing institutional facts (in Searle's sense) integrated with physical devices that serve the needs of diverse, distributed populations around the globe.
These efforts requires solid engineering metaphysics, epistemology, and a deeper concern for the logic of invention. They will also strain our Cold War notions of engineering ethics as well. For these reasons, and many more, a better concern for the philsophy of engineering is crucial at this juncture in time.
My view is that the crisis is worse than Fox suggests. and I doubt that the remedies suggested will be of much
More Teaching Company hits
I've blogged previously about Teaching Company courses, and my combined mind-body exercise program continues unabated. I just finished James Hall's course Tools of Thinking: Understanding the World Through Experience and Reason. I liked his earlier course Philosophy of Religion, and thought Tools of Thinking would be worth a shot. I was right.
Tools of Thinking is a subtle interweaving of metaphysics, logic, philosophy of science, history of thought and great thinkers in a form that I think entrepreneurial engineers will particularly appreciate. It is practical, erudite, informative and Hall has a dry sense of humor and an avuncular manner. Lovely course.
I'm just underway on the Teaching Company's flagship course 84-lecture Great Minds of the Western Intellectual Tradition, 3rd Edition. Back when I started running (1994?), I bought the first edition of this course on audiotape, listened to it on my morning runs, and really enjoyed it, but they've added some terrific new lecturers and made a very good course even better. My exercise regimen has changed (weights and elliptical training), and now I watch DVDs instead of listening to tapes, but the Teaching Company has been a twelve-year invariant in my life.
Tools of Thinking is a subtle interweaving of metaphysics, logic, philosophy of science, history of thought and great thinkers in a form that I think entrepreneurial engineers will particularly appreciate. It is practical, erudite, informative and Hall has a dry sense of humor and an avuncular manner. Lovely course.
I'm just underway on the Teaching Company's flagship course 84-lecture Great Minds of the Western Intellectual Tradition, 3rd Edition. Back when I started running (1994?), I bought the first edition of this course on audiotape, listened to it on my morning runs, and really enjoyed it, but they've added some terrific new lecturers and made a very good course even better. My exercise regimen has changed (weights and elliptical training), and now I watch DVDs instead of listening to tapes, but the Teaching Company has been a twelve-year invariant in my life.
Hello TEE students
The purpose of this post is to say hello to all GE 498 students in The Entrepreneurial Engineer. There is still time to register for those interested in taking the course online. For those interested in taking it on campus, simply sign up using the normal registration procedures.
Sunday, August 20, 2006
Take TEE online
The arrival date for The Entrepreneurial Engineer in the warehouse at Wiley is 25 August. In the meanwhile, you can sign up to take my 1-hour online course by the same name at the Office of Continuing Engineering Education website here.
The course can be used toward credit for the Strategic Technology Management graduate certificate (see here). It may also be useful for a variety of online graduate programs at the UIUC and elsewhere (see program requirements).
I will be offering the course on campus on Thursday afternoons (starting this week) as GE 498-DG1 (click here).
The course can be used toward credit for the Strategic Technology Management graduate certificate (see here). It may also be useful for a variety of online graduate programs at the UIUC and elsewhere (see program requirements).
I will be offering the course on campus on Thursday afternoons (starting this week) as GE 498-DG1 (click here).
Wednesday, July 19, 2006
Epictetus for entrepreneurial engineers
As part of the course I'm taking on the Greco-Roman moralists, I've been reading some Epictetus's Discourses. He hits the hammer on the head in book 1, discourse 1 Of the things which are under our control and not under our control:
But now, although it is in our power to care for one thing only and devote ourselves to but one, we choose rather to care for many things, and to be tied fast to many, even to our body and our estate and brother and friend and child and slave. Wherefore, being tied fast to many things, we are burdened and dragged down by them. . . We must make the best of what is under our control, and take the rest as its nature is.Nuggests of wisdom of the ages are found on almost every page.
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