Humanities and social sciences in engineering education - Postwar to postmodern and beyond

The impact of EC2000 on the humanities/social sciences (HSS) component of engineering curricula concerns both engineering and HSS faculty members. This paper reviews how the events of the last fifty years hate affected the role of the HSS in engineering education. After World War II a strong effort was made to strengthen the scientific basis of the undergraduate engineering curriculum to better prepare students for graduate study and research. At the same time there was an effort to return the HSS, which had been neglected during WWII, to a store important role in this curriculum. By the late 1960s this had led to overcrowded curricula. Dissatisfaction with tire HSS led to calls for reform, but in the press of other events, these went largely unheeded. In the post-Cold Lour era, industry's need to compete in global markets has put other demands on the engineering curriculum that tray further diminish the role of the HSS. Some tentative conclusions are drawn from these events about the future prospects of the HSS tinder EC2000.