CVEN 665 & Critical Thinking

I am enrolled in this course to gain the systems analysis techniques taught in this class and later utilize them whenever possible. I am hoping that this class will advance the way in which I approach projects when I will be working in industry. Clement and Lochhead (1980) in Cognitive Process Instruction stated that "We should be teaching students how to think. Instead, we are teaching them what to think." Engineering classes are often teaching technical methodology in which to solve problems, however an analytical way of thinking is necessary in the engineering field, as opposed to a procedural approach.

Critical thinking involves comprehension, analysis and evaluation. In my opinion, critical thinking is something that is necessary for engineers either in the research field or one that works in the industry. It is necessary to utilize critical thinking for an optimized design approach, as opposed to an engineer designing by following a set of standards. Whenever there is a problem with a design, it is mainly due to overlooking a state, component or component interactions within the system. If critical thinking is used when building a model of a system, many design problems can ultimately be avoided.