The first speaker spoke about the issue of being innovative in the modern context. While he agrees that it is increasingly difficult to create new ground breaking inventions like the first aircraft, he still believes there are still rooms for improvement in even the simplest of things. Being a strong advocate of innovation, he further explained that the driving force of today’s advancement in technology has helped improve the standard of living of the people. As such, in order to inculcate innovativeness in NUS engineering students, the faculty has adjusted its curriculum to evolve around the idea of design centric program.
Certainly, having a design centric program will assist student to become more innovative by expanding their mental horizon. A design centric program encourages student to think of alternative solutions to a problem by taking multiple view points on a single subject. For instance, energy can not only be harvest through hydroelectric dams or windmills but can be generated from solar panels. This illustrates the idea that innovation can help to steer students’ mindset away from the conventional way of doing things to unchartered zones.
However, to say that having a design centric program would surely groom all students to be innovative is exaggerated. In fact it takes more than just education to be creative. It involves a total change of mindset. This is because it requires an individual to challenge the existing norm and make a stand that the product is an improvement to the existing technology. This is by no means an easy feat, as there would be many detractors who would demoralise simply by saying it would not work. Hence it requires a strong will and great confidence in oneself in order to for a product to be new and creative.
As we can see, the idea of being creative not just lies with education. Key aspects like a change in mindset are also required in order to truly stand out from the crowd. Although NUS engineering faculty has offered opportunities for students to be different, the choice of becoming one ultimately depends on the students themselves.
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The design centric programme, as I take to believe, aims to foster creativity and curiosity in the NUS engineering student. Such a programme would equip students to think holistically, critically and pragmatically; drawing knowledge from multiple disciplines, and then integrating them together with design as the primary focus.
ReplyDeletePersonally, I believe that the Design Centric Programme is rather noble, if not ingenious programme. I welcome it, and I too share in the ideals that it advocates. However I do not believe that such lofty aims would truly succeed in inculcating creativity and innovativeness of their students. You have noted that one of the possible reasons for such is the lack of willingness to change in mindset on the part of the students, and I agree to your point. After all, such idealistic change requires personal conviction and belief, and hence “it requires a strong will and great confidence in oneself”
Is it truly possible to inculcate values within an individual over a span of three or four years? Fundamental ethical values such as respecting each other take years to ‘sink into’ a child, and it is not truly realized until the child reasons it out to himself independently. Now, if such fundamental values already require years of inculcation before it may take effect, how more the values that ‘curiosity is good’, ‘creativity develops the individual’ and ‘design is the key to success’?
Moreover, to inculcate such a Design Centric ‘value’ would take more than just exposure time. Existing conflicting mindsets have to be torn down, or re-evaluated, for the student to truly believe and be independently innovative. We are aware that many students within the faculty study engineering merely “to get a certificate, a stable job, and be successful”. Also, the Asian value of “being safe than sorry” may result in students being reluctant to take risks and oppose the norm, thus hampering creativity and criticality in thought.
I have only considered the Design Centric Programme as a value today, but evidently we can already see the potential challenges it would be facing before such an aim becomes an achievement. Perhaps it would be ideal if such values were introduced at an earlier time (of education). Nevertheless, we should not despair in our attempts to continue inculcating these ideals into our current students of engineering. After all, learning (including values) never stops with age, and Rome was never built in a single day.