Master Of Engineering:Past, Present, Future

The concept of Master of Engineering (M.Eng) developed in the 1960s in reaction to two factors. One factor was the recognition that a 4-year bachelors degree was not sufficient to properly educate an engineering professional. Various engineering-education reports identified more and more subjects that engineers needed in their first professional degree. In 1955, the ASEE Grinter Report recommended that more mathematics and science be added to the engineering curriculum. In 1956, the Burdell Report recommended that more humanities and social sciences be added to the curriculum. This was at a time when most Bachelors degrees in Engineering required over 140 semester hours of course work. Even then, the need to go beyond a bachelor’s degree became more and more evident. Finally in the ASEE Walker report of 1968, a case was made extending engineering education beyond the bachelor’s degree. To quote from the report 3,p. 376 , "There is little doubt that during the next decade we will witness a rapidly developing consensus that the master's degree should be considered the basic professional degree in engineering."