EPP's Undergraduate Program:
Objectives and Outcomes

Mission Statement

The Department of Engineering and Public Policy (EPP) is a unique engineering department, whose overall objective is to enhance undergraduate engineering education with the perspectives and skills that enable the engineer to understand and work at the interface between technology and society. Society is largely responsible for setting the goals and framing the problems that engineers work on. However, technologies designed by engineers profoundly change the societies in which they operate. Technology has enabled a healthier, richer and more productive society. At the same time, technology has contributed to the creation of many of the more serious problems our society faces.

Technology can help us build a happier, freer, and more fulfilling life, while maintaining risks and undesirable impacts at acceptable levels. But that does not happen automatically. It takes careful hard work by people who understand both technology and the society in which they live. In order to do their jobs responsibly and well in today.s world, engineers must develop an understanding of the interface between technology and society and a command of the skills necessary to work at that interface. The undergraduate degree programs of the Department of Engineering and Public Policy (EPP) have been designed to allow engineering students at Carnegie Mellon University to add this important dimension to their traditional engineering education. EPP double major graduates, for the most part, will enter traditional engineering careers ...and in doing so will carry with them a set of insights and skills that will help them to better deal with issues in technology and policy, and better exercise their ethical and social obligations as practicing professionals.

EPP Educational Outcomes: Double Major Knowledge and Skills Development

Through required courses, carefully selected technical and non-technical electives, and project activities, double major students in Engineering and Public Policy develop the knowledge and skills needed to understand and address the broader social context of technology during the course of their future careers as practicing engineers. Specifically they develop:

• An understanding of ideas and analytical tools in economics, decision science, and other social sciences through several required courses and a group of "social analysis electives;"
• A knowledge of probability and statistics beyond that acquired by many engineering single majors;
• An understanding of how technical and social issues interact and affect each other through a set of required "EPP technical electives” (these courses are also available to other CIT students who wish to broaden their technical education).
• An appreciation of, and ability to deal with, ethical issues posed by technology and technical systems though case studies and discussion in the EPP Sophomore Seminar. Additionally, students may choose EPP technical and social analysis electives that cover ethics in disciplinary, philosophical, societal, and technical contexts.
• Hands on experience in integrating their technical and social analytical skills by addressing current, open-ended technology and public policy problems in two group project courses. These courses also require students to work in interdisciplinary groups, and they enhance communications skills through group processes and formal presentations.
• An understanding of how decision-makers in governments and other institutions can effectively use technical and scientific information when devising or evaluating public policy.

EPP Double Major Objectives: Advantages in Career Paths

By design, most graduates from Engineering and Public Policy pursue traditional technical career paths. However, the double major provides students with additional insights and abilities including:

• Conduct the practice of engineering with an understanding that it is not isolated from society: Technical products and systems are shaped, conditioned and evaluated by society while at the same time technology shapes the social world.
• In the practice of engineering, recognize situations and seek advanced assistance, where one’s work may have effects in areas such as health, safety, environmental and economic regulation, and impacts of technological innovation.
• Design mass-produced products or large scale systems with an understanding of the effects and attributes that distinguish these undertakings from small scale or prototype designs.
• Use, or seek help in using the tools and methods available to approach complex decision problems that engineers often must face, including issues beyond the design of products and processes.
• Consider career paths more diverse than those traditionally associated with engineering or other technical careers, where one believes that the alternative career path may lead to greater personal satisfaction or fulfillment.
• Integrate both "hard" and "soft" engineering issues, where the engineer is a participant in teams composed of many disciplines.