ORIGINS OF ENGINEERING AND BEGINING OF ENGINEERING EDUCATION

ORIGINS OF ENGINEERING AND BEGINING OF ENGINEERING EDUCATION



The term engineering derived from word engineer. Engine’er meaned operates an engine which came from “a constructor of military engines”. Older origin of the word “engine” derived from ingenium in Latin and ingenium means “innate quality, especially mental power, hence a clever invention.”

When human invented pulley,lever and wheel, the concept of engineering came into being. The first engineers were military engineers and the engineers concerned with road,briges and fortifications.

The first schools of engineering were founded in France in the middle of the 18th Century. France had establish military and polytechnic schools to teach engineering that produced Laplace, Lagrange, and Fourier.


The first school that offered engineering education in America was the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, beginning in 1802. The first school is the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute which give education of the civil engineering. By the end of 1800s, types of engineering programs existed at a number of universities nationally.

References:
http://www.seas.ucla.edu/hsseas/history/origin.html
http://www.hi.is/~joner/eaps/cs_histe.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engineering