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Document 2002-1291

Building the bridge between engineering and engineering technology schools in a telecommunications program

Djafar K. Mynbaev New York City Technical College of the City University of New York Department of Electrical Engineering Technology and Telecommunications

Abstract There is a traditional contradiction between engineering and engineering technology schools. The former are more theoretically oriented; engineering courses taught at engineering schools rely heavily on the student’s strong background in physics and mathematics. The graduates of engineering schools traditionally work as researchers, developers, and designers of new devices and technologies. Engineering-technology school graduates are more practical- oriented; the courses require less theory and are more descriptive. Engineering technology education emphasizes extensive laboratory work. Graduates of such schools work primarily as maintenance and control personnel, operating with existing equipment rather than creating new equipment. However, today industry has changed the traditional approach to design and maintenance. These changes are characterized by a dramatic shortening of the design stage and, more important, by a consideration of the maintenance requirements of new equipment at the design stage. Consider, for example, the telecommunications industry. Indeed, reliability, protection and restoration ability, and the ease of managing telecommunications networks are as important as their transmission speed and security. But all these properties have to be built in before the networks come into operation. All this implies that engineers responsible for maintenance and control—engineering technology graduates, that is—have to be involved in the design of new systems and technologies. The point is that engineering technology graduates have to be able to speak the same language as design engineers. It follows, then, that engineering technology students must be familiar with the type of academic training engineers receive. This is why teaching engineering-level courses at an engineering technology school represent an important approach to meeting the new challenge posed by industry. This paper discusses the major features of engineering-technology programs and a possible way to teach engineering-level courses in such programs. As an example, we will consider the practice of teaching a fiber-optic communications course in a baccalaureate program for telecommunications technology majors, a course based on our textbook 1. Several practical illustrations support the thesis of this paper.

Main features of engineering technology schools and fiber-optic communications courses When teaching in an engineering technology program, the instructor must address two critical issues: The first is the nature of the future work and potential responsibilities of the graduates. They are trained to work as technologists, which means their major responsibilities lie

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Mynbaev, D. (2002, June), Building The Bridge Between Engineering And Engineering Technology Schools In Telecommunications Program Paper presented at 2002 Annual Conference, Montreal, Canada. 10.18260/1-2--10225