Page:Engineering as a vocation (IA cu31924004245605).pdf/50

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CHAPTER III

THE EDUCATION OF THE ENGINEER

An engineering course comprises:

Eight years grammar school,
Four years high school,
Four, five or six years technical school.

The standard course in technical schools has been four years in length, but within the past ten years many American colleges and universities have established five- and six-year courses. Some have done this in order to give the students more purely cultural studies and some have added to the courses many things that seem to be essential nowadays to the education of the engineer along professional lines.

In all colleges and universities offering a selection of courses for different degrees the engineering courses are avoided by lazy students and "the engineers" are looked upon as being the hardest worked students; their courses the most difficult. If a man cannot undertake such a training as is above outlined he had better go into a business where the training is not so severe and expensive, for an engineering education costs from two thousand dollars up to any amount the student