Critical Thinking: An Important Aspect Of Engineers' Career Article Summary

We live in an age of data surplus. With the advancement of globalization, digitalization, and rapid industrialization, the world has successfully glorified a slogger as a millennial work rule. One of the main goals of higher education has always been to instill the habit of critical thinking in students, to boost them as responsible human beings and evaluators.  In the USA, where engineering seems to be one of the most famous professions for job security and pay, engineers themselves seem to have fallen deep into a den of technical knowledge.  The requirement of the hour is "critical thinking", a way of rationalizing, that's self-directed, self-disciplined, self-monitored, and self-corrective.

What is critical thinking?

It is the objective analysis and evaluation of an issue to form a judgment. Seventeenth-century English philosopher and statesman, Sir Francis Bacon was seriously concerned with the way we misuse our minds in the pursuit of knowledge. He said, "Read not to contradict and conflate, nor to believe and take for granted, nor to find talk and discourse, but to weigh and consider." 

Why target engineers specifically? 

Engineers in the USA work in a busy environment with little time left for family or recreation. They do tasks that are turning them into androids with tons of information at their disposal, but no intellectual faculty to filter them. For engineering students and future engineers, critical thinking is crucial. Specific fields like telecommunication, info and communication technologies, mechatronics and robotics, physics, machine-building, and other engineering areas demand such skills.

How to learn critical thinking? 

Since critical thinking is at the core of intellectual development among all fields of study, it becomes imperative for contemporary pedagogy to dedicate selective modules for teaching this talent. Institutions must focus on 21st Century skills and foundational development models for college kids of engineering and management. A strong learning model of this nature demands well-prepared teachers and strategically organized groups, capable of molding critical thinkers. Upcoming engineers equipped with this fierce ability to think critically, are ahead and far better in their professional and personal lives than those who still rely on impromptu methods.