Engineering at Dordt College

The American Institute of Physics reports that engineers do better than biologists on the MCAT for admission to medical school. (Thank you Professor Brue for mentioning this information to me.) Here’s the rank:

1st place: Biomedical Engineering majors
2nd: Physics
3rd: Electrical Engineering

Biology majors came in at 11th place. (complete report)

Does that surprise you? There is a stereotype that engineers are narrowly interested in things and not people. According to that stereotype, the engineering lifestyle revolves around stuff like compressors, circuit boards, core samples, and pimped out computers with dual monitors. Engineers supposedly eat lots of donuts, pizza, donuts, Big Mac’s, donuts, pizza and for some variety, Whopper Burgers. They slurp Mountain Dew Code Red by the 2-liter bottle till about 4 AM each morning to get a pile of tediously detailed engineering work done during hours when nobody is awake to interrupt them. By 6 AM they are refreshed from a nap on the couch in the company’s front lobby. They can’t wait to get back to work. They talk incessantly using arcane initialisms like “PLC” and “FPGA” and “DMA” and “QPSK” or better yet, “differential QPSK,” so you can’t understand what they’re talking about. They think they’re smart. (Maybe I’m having too much fun writing this stereotype!)

Well, it ain’t true—at least not the bad parts of that description! These results on the MCAT are just more evidence that engineers have a life. Engineers, even electrical engineers, are very interested in and capable of understanding broader issues such as, in this case, healthcare. And there’s a magazine article to the effect that more CEO’s have engineering degrees than business administration degrees as their first degree! A good engineering education is a ticket to leadership. A Dordt engineering degree has already lead to leadership roles (VP of engineering, company owner, company founder, university professor, etc.) for several of our graduates.

Most importantly, I’m glad to be at Dordt because, although many engineering schools know about the leadership connection to engineering, it can be an accidental side effect. Dordt has an engineering program that roots its concept of leadership in the the Bible. We call it servant-leadership. We see Jesus as an example of leadership. We do our studies and set our priorities (as best we humbly can in our sinful condition) in order to serve the Lord. What could be more motivating, provide a better sense of direction for our work, and build a better community? And the leadership of our graduates is sought after. Plenty of companies aggressively recruit our graduates and hire our students as interns.