This is how engineering education was explained to me: 1st year: Well-defined problems, well-defined answers 2nd year: Less-defined problems (labs) 3rd year:

This is how engineering education was explained to me: 1st year: Well-defined problems, well-defined answers 2nd year: Less-defined problems (labs) 3rd year: Harder problems where part of it is defining what the problem is, more labs 4th year: A vague problem like design a plant to process X and produce Y I believe the purpose of engineering education is to teach you effective problem solving. Yes, you learn a variety of common methods but really, engineering is about creative problem solving with constraints If you cannot make it past physics or chemistry, you do not make it to the true problem solving curriculum.