The Fifth Column: Using Operations Research to Model a Way to (Successfully!) Teach Humanities to Engineers and Scientists in Such a Way as to Inspire Cultural Breadth and Lifelong Learning

One of the more difficult problems in teaching is inspiring engineering students to relish taking humanities courses. ABET, the organization that accredits engineering programs, requires students to take 19 semester hours of courses in humanities and social sciences to obtain an undergraduate engineering degree. The principal reason for this course is that the author believes that any creativity that students bring to an undergraduate engineering program is usually beaten out of them by the time they reach their senior year.