Practical Training in Industry for the Graduate in Mechanical Engineering: Part IV

Abstract

Engineering is not only a science but also an art. With the ever-increasing scientific content of an engineering graduate's training, less and less time is devoted to workshop practice, machine drawing, and design. The engineering graduate leaving the university today is much less an engineer than his counterpart was in 1910. In fact, universities do not produce engineers, they train students in engineering science and it is left to industry to complete the graduate's training.

The common pattern of training for the graduate engineer is direct from school to the university for three years followed, after graduation, by two years' practical training. The author suggests an alternative scheme of one year in industry after leaving school to be followed by three years in a university, the graduate's training being completed by a further year's training in industry. The scheme is called ‘the thick sandwich’. Its main advantages are that (1) the undergraduate knows what engineering is when he joins a university, (2) it will tend to produce men with a stronger bias towards the production side of the industry, and (3) men who commence their training in the shops will be, after graduation, more acceptable to the personnel of the engineering industry.