Just to start, i would like to change the title of the 'Missing Basics'. This, because these subjects we are discussing are not simply skills that an engineer should have but because they have a much wider importance: they are fundamental for everyones life. Therefore i would prefer to call them 'Life Basics'. Another reason for this new name would be because those important tools are usually learned from life itself, as we interact with the community.
To be able to ask and answer good questions, communicate, visualize, measure and decompose big problems into smaller/easier ones, are skills that one can learn just by leaving it's life. Although, it's much easier do develop them when you are being guided or tutored since your contact whit those skills become more intense. In my opinion - the 'Life Basics' only became the 'Missing Basics' for the engineering education because sometimes engineers forget the importance of becoming a complete person and only focus on learning the technical skills one needs to succeed in it's area of actuation.
I defiantly agree that the "missing basics" are actually life basics. It is really important for everyone to know those skills because they are fundamental in our ability to become a valuable member of the work force. However, I don't always think life throws people the opportunity to learn these skills. People can learn a lot from simply being around others but sometimes it is necessary, in my opinion, for people to go out and find the places in life where they can learn these basics. I don't think people should take life as waves washing over a stone. Sometimes we need to get up and find the answers for ourselves.
ReplyDeleteI really like your idea that those missing basics that professor Goldberg talk about are basics for our life. I think that this basics are really developed through our own path in our life, but what a better thing that this basics are tutored or guided by someone who knows about the topics.
ReplyDeleteBut as you said that this basics are fundamental for everyones life, I have thought why are this basics only taught(better guided) to only engineers, and more in depth only to a few of them. I would really support that as you said there are life basics, but also I would suggest that those should be taught to everyone so that everyone can become better persons.
Besides what you say that engineers forget of the importance of becoming better persons, I think that in fact that is not true. i truly believe that searching for a better knowledge and a better professional life, comes from a basis that was build when we were little. With this I mean(as I expressed in my own blog) that since little all of us had an education, but especially in Colombia, education is not just focused in the maths and sciences (that is what everyone believes engineers are made of), but instead we were also taught humanities and arts. I thinks this branches of education are also important for developing other skills in education, and more in depth a great quantity of the called missing ones. That is why if we get educated with this basis, it is really difficult to forget to be a better person. In my belief I think that your statement gets related to the type of education each person has.
I think it is too stringent to consider those “Missing Basics” as Life-basics. After all engineers require much higher level of knowledge than people do in many other fields; compared to the advanced scientific theories and math equations we need to learn, these missing skills can only be regarded as basic. Meanwhile, to many other less educated people, these so-called “basics” can be very difficult to achieve throughout their life. On the other hand, I have the same opinion as you do that the “Missing Basics” are mostly learnt from life, interacting with the community. But apparently it can’t be so simple to gain these “Missing Basics”, otherwise few engineers will miss the “Basics” considering how smart they are. What we also need to do to catch the “Basics” is to administer self-reflection and critical thinking to digest what we learn from interacting with others. This is a crucial step because not every engineer can figure out his or her self-weakness from learning from others’ advantage; however, what we usually do is solving other’s problem by our own knowledge. I believe this is what primarily impedes engineers from gaining those “Missing Basics”.
ReplyDeleteMissing Basics=Life Basics.
ReplyDeleteI am totally for this ideals.But the second part i don't agree with that.I think a person learns better if he learns about these basics himself and tries to figure them out without anyone's help.According to me this is what iEFX is trying to do by asking us to do whatever we want in the iTeam Meetings and subtly asking us to develop all those skills without anyone actually guiding us always.