Formal post-graduate education in automatic control in the United States

✍ Scribed by Stephen Kahne

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 1972
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 628 KB
• Volume: 8
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0005-1098
• DOI: 10.1016/0005-1098(72)90023-4

✦ Synopsis

Postgraduate automatic control education in American universities is highly structured, but the strong mathematical basis of this education is not always the best preparation for a career in automatic control.

Smamm'y--American educational institutions have developed an approach to post graduate education which is not common in the rest of the world. This paper reviews the American system of education in automatic control beyond the b~__~z' ~__laureate ~ and discmses some of the strev~hs and vmflmcsscs of this sysmn.

In 1969 the Education Committee of the American Automatic Control Council surveyed American educational institutions offering advanced degre~ with specialization in automatic control. Some of the facts in the present paper were obtained from this source. A summary of the survey may be found in the author's Ref. 1.

To TH~ casual observer, the first year of graduate education in automatic control resembles the last years of undergraduate education in engineering or science. In America, graduate education refers to all education beyond the baccalaureate degree such as Bachelor of Science, or Bachelor of Electrical Engineering. There are numerous designations for these degrees but they have the common feature of being "Bachelor" degrees. Students who pursue graduate studies in automatic control most often do this by specialization in an engineering department. Departments of automatic control are generally not to be found in American universities. Graduate work in automatic control is occasionally administered by special centers at universities *