From Technicians to Leaders: The Role of Humanities and Social Sciences in Shaping Socially Responsible Engineers

Engineering professionals are expected to face increasingly complex challenges, environmental sustainability and social issues. However, if we consider traditional engineering education, focused mainly on technical skills, social, ethical, and cultural issues are often ignored. One possibility for such issues to be considered by engineers is the integration of the Humanities and Social Sciences (HSS) into the Engineering curricula. Based on articles and case studies, this article explores the role that HSS can play in training engineers with the critical thinking and ethical leadership needed to deal with contemporary problems. Even with significant challenges, such as teacher and student resistance and rigid curricular structures, this article seeks to present alternatives to overcome these barriers. By restructuring curricula to emphasize the social impact of engineering, higher education institutions can provide students with experiences to become engineers who are able to lead innovative and socially responsible solutions. Considering, then, the challenges facing engineers, the integration of HSS into engineering education may mean a necessary change in course curricula to ensure that future engineers contribute to a more just and sustainable world.

Regis Pasini is a PhD student in Electrical Engineering at the State University of Campinas. He is currently adjunct coordinator of the Computer Engineering and Production Engineering courses at the Santo André Foundation University Center. His research interests are in engineering education, entrepreneurial education, and robotics.

Gilmar Barreto has received his PhD in Electrical Engineering from the State University of Campinas (2002), where he is currently a professor. He is the author of the books Electric Vehicles and Alternating Current Circuits. His research interests are in electrical engineering, industrial electronics, electronic systems and controls, fuzzy systems, multivariable systems, control, multiobjective and electrochemical optimization, and engineering education.

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Engineering Education, Humanities Integration in Engineering Education, Ethical Leadership.