Prof Ramakrishna article (assignment 1)

Visiting the NUS engineering website, the message to us is “Scientists invent things, while Engineers create things”. In NUS, prospective engineers are trained to think systematically by letting them go through a very comprehensive and tedious course. It is hard work, and there is no short-cut to complete this course. For example, the various Mathematics modules enable prospective engineers to try to understand a problem and then solve it. Every step needs to be worked out and the person doing it must be very clear on what he is doing. It also trains prospective engineers to be patient as some of the questions cannot be solved easily.

The school also teaches the students programming languages which train the student to be systematic in their thinking. As the computer is a device that can only operate line by line instruction, the students will have no choice but to try to design solution that are systematic in nature. This is very different from some fields such as arts, where there is no right and wrong answer and creativity is highly valued.

Lastly, the school has a lot of modules that have project works which will help to improve its students. For example, by mixing students of all ability, the school hopes that the better ones be able to influence their weaker peers and help them be more systematic in their thinking. By working with their weaker peers, the better ones can sort of influence their thoughts and make them better engineers. All in all, engineers are the special batches who have unique ability to comprehend complex information and design models for these problems.