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Ahmad Alshakargi
English 1010-024
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Some beneficial changes suggestion for the Civil Engineering Transfer-Degree programs at
colleges and engineering schools (Assignment 3)
After graduating from high school, my biggest aspiration was to become a civil engineer,
but unfortunately, it came out to be one of the longest and hardest studying major to accomplish.
Becoming a civil engineer requires a great deal of studying and training, and it takes at least five
years to get a bachelor degree, which is the minimum requirement to get the license. There many
possible ways to get the bachelor degree; it could be done by spending four years in the
university, or through the transfer programs. I choose to take the transfer program because it is
the cheapest and most common way for all the low budget students, but it also has some
negative. Civil Engineering Transfer-Degree requires 71.5 credit hours to complete the degree,
which is usually above the average requirements for the other majors, and it should be reduced to
60 credit hours. Besides that, there needs to be more job training, and basic scientific studies,
instead of requiring many unnecessary elective classes, that is not helpful for engineering and it
need to be removed from the requirements. This could also be very beneficial for the students, by
saving them time, money, and help them to be more successful in their career.
On the other side, these requirements that the college assign could be very helpful to the
students. It helps them increase their amount of knowledge about many of different subjects,
before they get deeper in their career study. In addition, these elective classes are very essential
for the undergraduate because it is going to be much harder for them, once they start taking their
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specified career classes directly, especially for those new college students who just graduated
from high school. Engineering also has many connection with arts and history; like the Gothic
Revival architecture and systems of castles back in the middle age, these things talk about the
early era of engineering. Therefore, studying one of these examples will help the student to
become more educated about the non-technical side of engineering. However, these nontechnical requirements should be very limited, and requiring a lot of it will be unnecessary for
the students, “Humanities/Social Science (H/SS) electives are generally non-technical courses.
Every Engineering student must take 6 of these courses (or 18 credits).” (“Back to Academic
Affairs,” 2011).
Education is beneficial to students in every way, but there is always a better replacement
for every subject, and so there are many different things more beneficial than history and fine
arts. Instead of taking too many credit hours of unnecessary wasteful elective classes, student
should be required to learn more about science; other than chemistry and physics, which is
already required. Engineering is also very connected to science; more than history, and so
requiring some scientific intro-classes will help the student to think more critically and use the
facts that they know more practically in their engineering classes. Example of these scientific
courses will be like biochemistry, microbiology, geology, organic chemistry, and especially
nanotechnology; “The nanotechnology developments convey the new vision and inspire
creativity in civil engineering.” (Zheng, Shih & Lozano, 2011, p. 162-173). Computer and
technology classes could also be very helpful, because every engineer needs to have computer
skills. Knowing how to use different computer programs may not be included in the degree, but
it is very possible that they will need it sometimes in the future, some of these programs are
Revit, C++, Java, After effect, AutoCAD (2D & 3D), Photoshop, and most importantly Civil 3D.
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As a result, all the elective requirement classes should be removed and replaced with
some scientific or computer classes that can help students understand more about the principle of
things like earth’s geography, computer programming, genetic engineering, and nuclear
engineering which is very important to understand for an engineer student. In addition, students
should be given more opportunity to have job training, or internship, which can help them to
succeed more in their career, and also build some working experience that helps them to be ready
to work after the graduations. One good example of job training will be hiring the students as
volunteers, in a construction sites. This will help them practice some actual work and
responsibility; responsibilities that only match their skills. This could be done around the college
areas, and be constructed and directed by some highly experienced engineers, that can help them
to fix and improve their points of weaknesses, and watch for the safety of their work, “practical
training can play an important role in readying engineering students for the work place in any
location and making the practical training as effective and as safe as possible should be a
universal goal.” (King & Duan, 2010, p. 233-238).
Civil engineering has made many improvements and changes, which is all associated
with the improvement of science and technology, “There have been significant changes in
undergraduate civil engineering curricula in the last two decades.” (Newson & Delatte, 2011, p.
1016-1030). This is why the requirements should be reduced to make it easier for the students, so
they can focus more on the important issues; like science and job training. On the other side,
students should still have some little knowledge about every subject; like history and fine arts,
but it should not be necessarily required. I also think that this issue should be looked at by the
engineering schools or community colleges principles and advisors, so they can study the issue
more specifically, and decide whether it is going to be beneficial to the students or not. If these
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changes occurred, it will save the students time, and it will give them the opportunity to get into
more beneficial classes, that will expand their knowledge further, and help them to succeed more
in their career.
References
Bielefeldt, A. R. (2011). Incorporating a Sustainability Module into First-Year Courses for Civil
and Environmental Engineering Students. Journal Of Professional Issues In Engineering
Education & Practice, 137(2), 78-85. doi:10.1061/(ASCE)EI.1943-5541.0000050
King, W. S., & Duan, L. L. (2010). Practical Summer Training in Civil and Construction
Engineering for Cultivation of Professional Ability. Journal Of Professional Issues In
Engineering Education & Practice, 136(4), 233-238. doi:10.1061/(ASCE)EI.1943
5541.0000024
Newson, T. A., & Delatte, N. J. (2011). Case methods in civil engineering teaching. Canadian
Journal Of Civil Engineering, 38(9), 1016-1030. doi:10.1139/l11-023
Rutgers School of Engineering (2011). Back to Academic Affairs. The State University of New
Jersey. retrieved from http://soe.rutgers.edu/oaa/electives, (848) 445-2214.
Zheng, W., Shih, H., Lozano, K., & Mo, Y. (2011). Impact of Nanotechnology on Future Civil
Engineering Practice and Its Reflection in Current Civil Engineering Education. Journal
Of Professional Issues In Engineering Education & Practice, 137(3), 162-173.
doi:10.1061/(ASCE)EI.1943-5541.0000034
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Reflective Writing
From this course, I have pushed my English skills over the limits. I also learned a lot of
new techniques and methods for writing essays, and I’m very happy about what I’ve done in the
end. In the beginning, this was much harder for me, since it was my first time taking a summer
course, and I was forced to set weekends and work on my English essays. Assignment one was
very challenging for me because I had to put too many requirements in one essay, and I success
in doing that. Assignment Two was also very challenging, and I wrote an essay that talk about an
issue that never discussed in public. That issue was about personal stereotyping against me,
which very hard to talk about because it force you to study your problem more deeply, and
you’re going to state what was the truth about yourself that people misunderstood, which was not
easy at all. The essay I choose to copy here is Assignment Three. This essay required some
unique type of researching, the instructor required us to bring 4 scholarly sources that argue with
the position we stating, which was very hard to find, and I was happy about the results that I got
because I almost got full score on that assignment. Finally, I’m going to take what I’ve wrote,
and talk about it in a new type presentation that I never done that serious before, and I hope that I
success at presenting it.
Now I’m going to move into a much harder level, which English 2100 (technical
writing). This is going to be my last English class in my college career, and I’m required to take
this one because it is more recommended for engineering and it helps more than English 2010.
The good thing is that I’m starting to feel confident about getting there, and that’s because my
studying and understanding became better and more serious than before. The whole purpose
from this is to become able to present some unique writing once I became considered
professional, and I feel like I got much better than before.