Olin College — Re-Engineering Engineering

theodp writes "In its College Issue, the NYT Magazine profiles tuition-free Olin College, which is building a different breed of engineer, stressing creativity, teamwork, and entrepreneurship — and, in no small part, courage. But questions remain as to whether the industry is ready for the freethinking products of Olin, and vice versa. Few of the class of 2006 are going on to grad study in engineering or jobs in the field."

Quasi-Old Fart Observation

[toxic666]

I'm not that old, 43, but feel like an old timer in engineering. Son of a EE gone Chief Engineer and trained as a GeolE (1987).

Olin is not inventing a new kind of engineer, they are trying to bring back the engineers of my father's generation. But they can put out the finest people on earth and it won't matter. Bean counters run companies now and they don't like what a good engineer has to say. Horrible things like "we need money to develop this idea", "saving ten cents per item will not save you money in the long run when it breaks and you have to replace it" and the ever-popular "outsourcing production to the cheapest labor you can find is not a good idea because it takes a little bit of skill and QA/QC to build it right".

Re:Misfits

[Anonymous Coward]

yes, they do.

the article was quite clear on this: the school teaches students how to *solve problems*. if this premise is accurate, then yes: they offer courses that teach you how to deal with all the above regurgitated prerequisites- and most anything else they can throw at you. congratulations on completely missing the point of TFA.

Re:tuition-free?

[lessthanjakejohn]

EVERY admitted student gets the full tuition Olin scholarship.

Re:tuition-free?

[VanWEric]

I'm one of the Olin Alumni (Class of '07).

Everyone who is admitted receives the scholarship. In fact, for 06 and 07s, room was included as well.

However, we do not offer graduate degrees. Olin is undergrad only.

Former MIT faculty

[Ellen Spertus]

Several of the Olin faculty members are fantastic teachers who were denied tenure at MIT because (in my opinion) their devotion to teaching cut into their research, which is all that counts toward MIT tenure. (This includes my advisor, Lynn Stein.) I'd be proud to teach at Olin or to send my children (if I had any) there.

Re:learning to think differently

[Afecks]

The student was Neils Bohr.

Any relation to Niels Bohr? No, to be serious, that's just a legend and only recently have people started tacking Niels Bohr at the end, just to give the entire story a feeling of vindication.

http://www.snopes.com/college/exam/barometer.asp [snopes.com]