Evaluation of Marine Structures Education in North America Program Judged Best
(Reprint from the Gazette 1996)
Memorial University's Naval Architectural Engineering program is not just the only degree of its kind in Canada, it's the best in North America.
That's according to Evaluation of Marine Structures Education North America , a report prepared for the Ship Structures Committee (SSC), a prestigious body with the mandate to further oceans engineering education in North America.
"The SSC commissioned the study to determine the state of ship structures education on the continent, as well as its profile in the workforce," said Dr. Mahmoud Haddara, chair of the discipline of Naval Architectural Engineering in the Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science.
Undergraduate and graduate marine structures education programs at several institutions - including Memorial, the University of Michigan, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Texas A & M University, the University of California at Berkeley, the United States Naval Academy - were evaluated for curriculum content.
The 114-page report contains descriptions for courses, subject areas studied, and the syllabi at the institutions.
The entry of Memorial reads in part, "The graduates of this program are thus nearly but not quite fully equivalent in educational breadth and professional preparation to those receiving master's degrees at most other schools being described here ... The professional content of what must still be termed an undergraduate curriculum is perhaps stronger and more varied than that offered by any of the schools in the U.S."
Engineering and Applied Science reps are pleased.
"We didn't expect to be rated and didn't expect to be rated so well," said Dr. Gary Sabin, associate dean (undergraduate). "The fact that they say very nice things about us in the context of other universities is something for Memorial to be proud of."
Dr. Haddara said faculty members have always been aware of the superiority of Memorial's program, but it's always good to be acknowledged by peers.
"[The report] gives us more confidence to make the statements we've been making all along," he said with a smile.
Naval Architectural graduates regularly receive job offers from major companies in the United States, United Kingdom, Germany and Australia. "These companies are choosing from an international pool," Dr. Haddara said. "They only look for the finest employees and they repeatedly look for our graduates."
The SSC report is also good news for students in the discipline. Clifton Meade is a Term 6 student, originally from New Brunswick, who moved to Gander a few years ago. His original interest was in aircraft design; he opted for the naval architectural engineering program because its classes are relatively small and because of its interdisciplinary nature. He was quite pleased to hear about the positive feedback the program is getting.
"As we're the only ocean engineering students in Canada, we don't run into many other naval architects," he said. "We don't get the chance that other disciplines do to compare notes on MUN's program."
"It shows us that the direction of the program is very good," said Dr. Rangaswamy Seshadri, dean of Engineering and Applied Science. "Naval Architectural Engineering has a number of common courses with the other engineering disciplines -- civil , electrical, and mechanical -- and there are the same number of courses for each program. I'm very confident that these results would apply to all our disciplines if similar studies were done.