Engineering departments must recruit non-STEM students

Difficult, on the none hand the assumption that because someone is good at maths/physics they lack a "holistic"outlook is seems unfounded. on the on the hand it might be that the personal characteristics that encourages talent in the mathematical sciences is one that eschews the soft thinking of the "holistic" view, and that you can't have your cake and eat it. It is not clear that you can select for students with a "holistic" view. the fact that someone has taken [say] `english, history etc. does not make them a "caring person anymore than taking physics makes them a "non-caring" person Good intentions and wishful thinking does not make an effective strategy

Somewhat insulted by the suggestion that a 'holistic' view represents 'soft' thinking...but I suspect the answer may be in a lot more joint learning. UK engineering education has been particularly insular in its reluctance to consider sharing elements modules with other discplines. I remember talking to an Australian engineering dean whose programme included joint learning between mining engineers and anthropologists so that the concerns of indigenous peoples were better understood and respected in field exploration and drilling. Suited the industry as well because a less confrontational approach actually lowered costs by avoiding litigation, trouble with elected representatives, etc. I know some of the big US schools do a lot more in philosophy and ethics or teach the literary analysis of science fiction as a way to stimulate creativity and encourage engineering students to reflect on possible design futures. Personally, I wouldn't want to sacrifice the maths - quite important that the birdges don't fall down - but a lot more could be done to prepare engineers to work in mulitdiscplinary teams with mutual understanding and respect for each other's skills. Engineers don't have to do it all by themselves - but sneering at 'soft subjects' is not a good place to start collaborations...

One problem you will find is that humanities-oriented people need spare time to develop and maintain their interests and this is scarcely compatible with working all the hours under the sun in a professional role, which is often a requirement in the professions, at least in the UK.

This doesn't really make sense to me. Engineering solutions are driven by a need to solve a problem. If the driving force of the problem iis achieve goal X then that is what will happen. If the driving force of the question is achieve goal X but keep in mind factors Y and Z then the problem is focused on more than just one goal. So you don't need to bring in people with on STEM interest you just need to educate engineering minded people that there is more about solving an engineering question than just getting to the solution. Trying to bring in people with no background or interest in STEM seems like smashing a square peg into a round hole. Instead introduce ethics courses to educate the STEM minded. The article mentions Doctors and medical schools teach ethics to students that are also highly academically oriented in STEM. The article mentions area of deprivation lack teachers in chemistry and physics. But the real issue is teachers are so poorly paid and have so much paperwork that people who could go into areas like chemistry and physics go for other jobs

Some years ago I had the privilege to work with Y3 undergraduates on a group business and design project unit at Bath where a combination of business/management topics were combined with a conceptual product development activity. It was close to the "capstone" unit that features in similar education programmes in North America and the UK (amongst others). During that time, my scholarly research found that some innovative programmes encouraged final-year management students to work with engineering project groups as an internal consultant (and get grades/credits as a result). It was a very refreshing idea which I have not yet had a chance to implement here in the UK. Before my career in academia, I worked in multi-disciplinary project teams in a wide range of engineering companies (aerospace, marine, defence and civil infrastructure). I never worked in a team that only consisted of mechanical engineers. It baffles me why we cannot run problem-based learning units across several engineering programmes. It would provide a much more authentic learning experience to our students.