11. Engineering The first school of technology in any English-speaking country was the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, established in 1802. It did not grant degrees, however, until 1933, when by Act of Congress it was given the right to confer the Bachelor of Science degree, not only on graduating classes after that date, but retroactively on earlier living graduates, as explained in chapter III. The first engineering degrees were conferred by Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, established in 1824 as Rensselaer School. Its first graduates in 1826 were given the rather unusual form of degrees, A.B. (r.s.) and M.A. (r.s.), Bachelor of Arts in Rensselaer School and Master of Arts in Rensselaer School, a practice which continued through 1934.20 The name of the institution was changed to Rensselaer Institute in 1832. In 1835 the degree of Civil Engineer (C.E.) was established and awarded the same year to four young men. At the same time the Bachelor of Natural Science (B.N.S.) instead of the Bachelor of Arts was adopted as more appropriate for the scientific curricula of the Institute. The degree of Topographical Engineer (T.E.) was first conferred in 1860, but discontinued after a few years. Mining Engineer (M.E.) was first used in 1868.21 Civil Engineer (C.E.) was used at Yale University in 1860, and Bachelor of Civil Engineering (B.C.E.) at Cornell University in 1871. Mechanical Engineer (M.E.) was used at Yale University in 1873 and Bachelor of Mechanical Engineering (B.M.E.) at Cornell University in 1873. The degree of Master of Science in Aeronautical Engineering was established at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1914. Below are listed the 348 degrees classified in table 10 in the field of Engineering as currently conferred by recognized colleges and universities; the number of institutions reporting the use of each of these degrees; and their abbreviation or abbreviations, with the institutional frequencies reported for each. Since some of the institutions did not indicate the abbreviations they use, the sum of the frequencies for abbreviations are often less than the total frequency given. Listed also (in italics) are 168 degrees not reported as currently conferred and their abbreviations as far as known, but without frequencies 20 Palmer C. Ricketts, History of the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, 1824-1894. New York: John W. Wiley & Sons, 1895, p. 39. 1 ibid., p. 79-80. |