Syllabus

Course Meeting Times

Lectures: 1 session / week, 3 hours / session

Recitations: 1 session / week, 1 hour / session

Spirit of the Seminar

In establishing the Engineering Systems Division (ESD), MIT has embarked on a bold experiment – bringing together diverse areas of expertise into what is designed to be a new field of study. In many respects, the full scale and scope of Engineering Systems as a field is still emerging. This seminar is simultaneously designed to codify what we presently know and to give direction for future development. In this spirit, the entire syllabus should be viewed as a living document – subject to adjustment based on student and faculty input throughout the term.

While certain topics, readings and guests change from year to year in this course, the focus across a broad range of topics in Engineering Systems remains the same. Throughout the term, faculty from the ESD program and other parts of MIT will be sitting in – either as invited guests or just as interested colleagues. We will give priority to comments from students, but also be sure to tap the wisdom of those who are sitting in.

Readings will come from a broad range of sources. Nonetheless, we suggest that students have familiarity with ESD symposia papers generated over the years.

Learning Objectives

The overriding top level objectives are two–fold:

1. Increasing student understanding of research in complex systems so as to allow them to develop a framework for further learning about how to do research.
2. Fostering a wide understanding of the knowledge content in engineering systems so that the students begin to establish a structure for learning more about the broad front of knowledge that is termed Engineering Systems.

At a more detailed level, the learning objectives are:

• Basic Literacy: Understanding of core concepts and principles – base level of literacy on the various aspects of engineering systems (ES).
• Inter–disciplinary Capability: The capability to reach out to adjacent fields in a respectful and knowledgeable way and the ability to engage with other ES scholars in assessing the importance to ES of new findings in related fields.
• Historical Roots: Understanding of historical/intellectual roots of key concepts and principles in engineering systems.
• ES and Observations, Data Sources and Data Reduction: An appreciation of the importance of empirical study to cumulative science and its difficulty in complex socio–technical systems.
• Critical Analysis: Ability to critically assess research and scholarship aimed at furthering knowledge in engineering systems; development of defendable point of view of important contributing disciplines in the ES field.
• Links Across Domains and Methods: Ability to identify links/connections across different fundamental domains and methods relevant to ES.
• Scholarly Skills: 1) The ability to write a professional–level critical book review; 2) a beginning level ability to develop and write a research proposal in the ES field; 3) the ability to present and lecture on critical analysis of material that one is not previously familiar with; 4) developing wider reading skills and habits.

Class Session Pro–Forma

The order of the elements is notional.

• Overview (5 minutes), Faculty—the theme for the week.
• Guest presentation and discussion (Occasionally this presentation may be done by course teaching staff) (55 minutes).
• Student–led presentation and discussion of the faculty–provided readings (30–45 minutes).
• Break (10 minutes).
• Teaching Time by course teaching staff (in total, an hour plus or minus):
  • Report from the Front, facilitated by course teaching staff—popular news article sent out to class on the day before class.
  • Course teaching staff–led discussion, and integration of materials.
  • Next week's class preview.

Note to Doctoral Students

This seminar is designed to help facilitate the transition from being a student taking courses from experts to being a doctoral candidate and then a colleague with your own distinctive voice as a scholar. There are few issues covered in the seminar in which there are simple right and wrong answers – in most cases it is critical thinking and constructive engagement of the issues that will be most important to your success.

Grading

Course deliverables are detailed in the Assignments section of this course.