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  3. A =Section A B =Section B C =Section C Section A Engineering students are supposed to be practically and rationally

A =Section A B =Section B C =Section C Section A Engineering students are supposed to be practically and rationally

admin2012-01-20  56
问题     A =Section A  B =Section B  C =Section C

    Section A
    Engineering students are supposed to be practically and rationally personified, but when it comes to my college education I am an idealist and a fool. In high school I wanted to be an electrical engineer and, of course, any sensible student with my aims would have chosen a college with a large engineering department, prestigious reputation and lots of fancy labs and research equipment. But that’s not what I did.
    I chose to study engineering at a small liberal-arts university that doesn’t even offer a major in electrical engineering. Obviously, this was not a practical choice; I came here for more noble reasons. I wanted a broad education that would provide me with flexibility and a value system to guide me in my career. I wanted to open my eyes and expand my vision by interacting with people who weren’t studying science or engineering. My parents, teachers and other adults commended me for such a prudent choice. They told me I was wise and mature beyond my 18 years, and I believed them.
    I headed off to college being sure I was going to have an advantage over these students who went to the big engineering "factories" where they didn’t care if you had values or were flexible. I was going to be a complete engineer: technical genius and sensitive humanist all in one.
    Now I’m not so sure. Somewhere along the line my lofty ideals smacked into reality, as all naive visions eventually do. After three years of struggling to balance math, physics and engineering courses with the humanities courses of my core, I have learned there are reasons why few engineering students try to combine engineering with a broad liberal curriculum in college.
    Section B
    The reality that has blocked my breezy path to stereotype smasher is that engineering and the liberal arts simply don’t mix as easily as I assumed in high school. Individually they shape a person in very different ways; together they threaten to confuse. The struggle to reconcile the two disciplines is difficult.
    Students who pursue more traditional liberal arts degrees don’t experience the dichotomy between major and core studies that I do. English or psychology majors find related subjects in almost any of their core courses. They can apply much of what they learn in "Chaucer and His Age" or "Personality Theories" to questions raised in "American Foreign Policy" or "Religions of the World".
    But I rarely find that my ability to analyze circuits by LaPlace transforms is applicable to the discussions held in my religion or history courses. What I contribute is almost always something learned in another core class, not in the science building. On the rare occasions when I do speak from my knowledge of engineering, there is a language barrier. I can’t talk mathematics to the people in my core classes because most don’t understand it. They force me to deliver a diluted and popularized version of my point that often fails to convey the impact I think it should. It’s like telling a joke to someone who doesn’t get it. You say the punch line and he looks dumbly at you, waiting for more. It’s frustrating.
    Not only do engineering and humanities subjects not overlap, but each discipline demands that I think in separate modes. When I walk into a core classroom I am expected to look at many different aspects of existence from a single point of view, such as ethical theory or Romantic poetry. When I enter an electronics laboratory I am expected to examine one thing, such as the characteristics of the ideal transformer, from several different angles, such as the laws of magnetic induction or the perspective of practical design. It feels different in the classroom than in the lab.
    The differences follow me out of the classroom. When I sit back in the recliner in my room to read a novel for "British Literature", I open my mind to allow associations between new knowledge and old. But when it is time to work through a few problems for "Electromagnetic Theory", I sit down at my desk on a hard wooden chair and shut out all of my thoughts except those that will help me find the answers.
    Section C
    The Two Cultures. The essential approach of each discipline can be captured in a metaphor. Imagine how each would use a spotlight to explore a theatrical stage. The humanities would use one colored filter and point the light all over the stage. Engineering would focus a tight beam on one particular actor and use the entire spectrum of colored filters.
    The gap between the two cultures of science and humanities is a common theme. But the engineer has even less in common with the humanities than the scientist does. The scientist at least shares the humanist’s ideal of knowledge for its own sake: the unimpeachable position of pure theory. Engineers are denied even this because they are explicitly concerned with using knowledge to fulfill our needs and purposes, both glorious and mundane. There is no pure theory in engineering. There is only what works.
    Many engineering students avoid the conflict between their major and their core by placing less emphasis on courses outside their major. They train their thinking to be most effective at solving well-defined problems and muddle through the foggy issues in their core courses as best they can. I am stubborn enough to believe I can learn to think more freely and still be an effective engineer, and that I can be technically honed and still be a human being.
    But I know I can’t smash all the stereotypes; I have acquired some of the prejudices they are based on. My writing professor urges me to be less rational. My religion professor reminds me that technology cannot solve all our problems, as much as I would like it to.
    As I was preparing last spring to register for classes this fall, I saw that I could be spending more time in the lab than ever during my senior year. Suddenly I wanted out. I swapped my minors in electrical engineering and computer science for a degree in physics, the most I could do without postponing my graduation.
    I was reluctant to switch, and someday I may return to engineering. But for now I need to stay closer to the humanities of my core so that I do not abandon part of myself before I know who I really am.
选项 A、 
B、 
C、 
答案A
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