ENGINEERING IN DOMINION

Press, Volume LXXXVII, Issue 26529, 18 September 1951, Page 8

ENGINEERING IN DOMINION

NEED FOR HIGHER DEGREES SEEN

AMERICAN PROFESSOR’S

OBSERVATIONS

New Zealand and its University have scope for post-graduate work in engineering and this should be recognised in awarding higher degrees, in the opinion of Dr. J. W. Miles, Associate Professor of Engineering in the University of California, who is in Christchurch this week lecturing under a Fulbright bursary. The bachelor of engineering degree, with honours, seemed an anachronism, he said, as honours seemed to involve all the work of a master s degree and should be rated as such. (New Zealand has no master’s degree in engineering, though changes in the degree structure are being considered.) The United States pattern was to award a bachelor's degree for general qualification and a master’s degree for higher study. Those doing research usually went on to a doctorate of philosophy in engineering, Dr. Miles said. New Zealand training, up to bachelor of was comparable in content and standard with that of the United States. Dr. Miles's own school is on the southern campus of the University of California in Los Angeles. It has about 1200 engineering students. The northern campus, at Berkeley, has more than 3000 engineering students.

Started after the recent war, the southern engineering school was "definitely experimental,” Dr. Miles said. It had no stated divisions into civil, mechanical, or electrical engineering, and students received a fairly general engineering education for three years and in the fourth their choice of subjects was largely elective and flexible. Workshop and drawing practice were reduced to a minimum. In this it resembled some of the more classical British universities teaching engineering.

At the bachelor's level big differences occurred in American and New Zealand engineering experience, Dr. Miles continued. In the Dominion nearly 75 per cent, of graduates seemed to enter the service of State or local government, while about 25 per cent, went into industry. In the United States the proportions were the other way round. The big demand came from industry. Provided the general bachelor of engineering degree had been obtained, there was little call for specialist training as the big firms liked to handle this development themselves.

One common practice was to put recruited graduates on a test course in which they would spend three months in turn on testing in the various departments until they found a field suited to their aptitudes and ability. The men thus gained some experience of all departments and then the firm gave specialised training, often in conjunction with the nearest university. The University of California was financed by the State legislature. “The funds are adequate but we always ask for more.” gaid Dr Miles with a laugh, when asked about private endowments and benefactions. Outside assistance did not now figure prominently. The “private" colleges were now having a somewhat thin time, Dr. Miles added. Inflation and high taxation had reduced their benefactions considerably. Engineers were still in great demand in all fields in the United States, Dr. Miles said. At the end of the war a national survey indicated that the supply of graduates would exceed the demand. The survey was either not sufficiently representative or government and industry could not predict their needs accurately—possibly both, said Dr. Miles. In any case all graduates were being placed easily and there was no slackening of requirements.