Public Welfare Argument Analysis

Words: 638
Pages: 3

Argument
The main point of this article is that the importance of public welfare to engineering students declines over the course of engineering education due to the culture of disengagement in the field of engineering. Engineers in the United States are not likely to consider the implications of technologies because they view public welfare concerns as irrelevant to their work; this causes a culture of disengagement in engineers in the United States. Cech uses a few main arguments. One is that engineering education should change to prevent a culture of disengagement. Cech also argues that encouraging engineers to think in terms of public welfare will reduce the culture of disengagement. According to Cech, more professional socialization will
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She argues that a sample of students from these schools may illustrate whether organizational climates within schools can override a culture of disengagement in the broader field of professional engineering. Olin and Smith have radically different approaches to engineering education, so Cech includes them in the study to see if a more culturally nurturing curriculum will lead to less of a decline in public welfare concern. However, after the study is complete, Cech finds that students from Olin and Smith still have relatively similar levels of loss of engagement with public welfare. Cech suggests that this is due to a process of “institutional isomorphism” where even schools that try to fight a culture of disengagement have a difficulty in doing so because they want to be seen as valid engineering institutions. Cech uses quantitative data to driver her point across. I find this highly engaging and interesting because statistics is my favorite field of math. Cech displays her data in such a way that is easy to read and make inferences from, and then she explains what her data means and how it relates to her main points. Cech also uses visual aids such as bar charts to describe the similarities and differences between the results of the teaching styles of the different engineering