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Sichuan University plans to cancel 31 majors, Lanzhou University plans to cancel 3 majors, Xiangtan University plans to cancel 7 majors, and Northwest A&F University plans to cancel 3 majors... Recently, many domestic universities have successively announced the 2024 major adjustments.

According to China Science Daily, as of July 31 this year, 19 universities have issued relevant announcements, canceling or suspending enrollment in a total of 99 majors. From the perspective of the disciplines of canceled majors, according to data from the past five years, engineering ranks first with a share of 30.95%, becoming the discipline type with the largest number of canceled majors, followed by management and science.

Why does the adjustment and cancellation of engineering majors rank first? What are the logic and characteristics of the cancellation and establishment of new engineering majors? In July this year, Li Peigen, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and a professor at the Engineering Education Research Center of Huazhong University of Science and Technology, and Wu Zhengyang, a doctoral student at the Institute of Educational Sciences of Huazhong University of Science and Technology, published a paper titled "Adjustment of Engineering Majors in my country in the Past Decade: Logic and Reflection" in the journal "Research on Higher Engineering Education".

The above paper points out that in recent years, my country has increased the number of traditional engineering majors to be eliminated year by year, and there is a trend of rapid increase. The structural adjustment of engineering majors has become a hot topic in engineering education. We must correctly understand the "substance" and "use" of traditional engineering majors. Traditional engineering majors should always be innovative, focusing on the redesign of the boundaries of majors and courses, and the establishment and elimination of majors should not be blind.

The hottest adjustment trend in history

The above-mentioned paper disclosed that according to the statistical data on the registration and approval results of undergraduate majors in ordinary colleges and universities in 2013-2022 by the Ministry of Education, the number of newly registered locations of engineering majors in my country in the past ten years was 7,566, involving a total of 240 engineering majors; 472 newly approved major locations involved 128 majors, among which the number of new majors accounted for a very high proportion. A total of 96 new engineering majors were opened in the past ten years. New majors such as data science and big data technology, robotics engineering, artificial intelligence, Internet of Things engineering, and intelligent manufacturing engineering have more than 300 locations across the country. The total number of locations of these new majors across the country exceeds 2,000.

"It is no exaggeration to say that my country's engineering majors have ushered in the hottest adjustment wave in history," Li Peigen and Wu Zhengyang pointed out in their paper.

The two researchers further analyzed that in order to gain an advantage in the competition for students and the job market, Chinese universities have continuously made efforts in opening new majors and have derived corresponding auxiliary measures. For example, universities have achieved the "digital intelligence" of departments through organizational changes and renaming of departments at the department level, or opened new directions under traditional engineering majors to achieve the "digital intelligence" of majors.

On the one hand, applied universities seek innovation and perfection, and never get tired of it. Driven by the logic of enrollment and government logic, applied universities have made drastic and rapid adjustments to their professional structures. Judging from the frequency distribution of new professional locations in statistical data, applied universities are the main force in the opening of new majors each year, and their activity is significantly higher than that of research universities. Applied universities often regard the addition of new majors, especially the opening of new majors, as a path dependence for scale expansion, student recruitment and employment quality improvement, so they maintain a high level of enthusiasm in strategic choices. Taking the intelligent manufacturing engineering major as an example, there are currently 303 applied universities offering it, accounting for about 90%.

On the other hand, research universities have tried to stick to their professional structure, but have "gradually fallen". The professional structure of research universities is complete and stable, with a small number of newly registered and cancelled majors. Professional adjustments are mostly driven by academic logic, and they are generally cautious about opening "hot" new majors. However, in recent years, due to the quality of students and competition in the job market, many research universities have gradually begun to compromise and have gradually shown enthusiasm in the application of new majors. Many "double first-class" universities and even top research universities have successively opened new engineering majors such as intelligent manufacturing engineering.

What are the characteristics of the cancelled and newly established majors?

According to the summary of the above-mentioned paper, the engineering majors that were cancelled mainly present the following logical characteristics: first, the cancelled majors are mainly typical traditional engineering majors; second, the cancelled majors can be presented in the form of "smart/wisdom +" in the newly approved majors; third, engineering majors derived from core technologies such as electronic computers in the third scientific and technological revolution are gradually fading, and traditional "hot" majors are gradually "cooling down".

The newly established engineering majors mainly present the following action logic: First, "intelligence/wisdom + traditional engineering" has become a typical model of newly established majors, such as nearly 20 new majors such as intelligent manufacturing engineering, intelligent construction, and intelligent mining engineering.

Second, with the accumulation of new-generation information technology, increasingly mature and independent new technologies are trying to build their own professional knowledge systems, hoping that the new technology knowledge systems will be institutionalized and become new majors, such as additive manufacturing, virtual reality technology, Internet of Things engineering, blockchain engineering and other technologies.

Third, the social needs of major national strategies and bottleneck technologies are mapped to professional construction, such as integrated circuit design and integrated systems, energy storage science and engineering, and other majors.

Fourth, the adjustment of majors attempts to couple national strategies with regional economic development needs. For example, majors such as new energy vehicle engineering, cyberspace security, confidentiality technology, cryptographic science and technology are born for national strategies; while new majors such as Moutai College's liquor brewing engineering and Zhejiang University of Technology's silk design and engineering are born with the genes to serve regional industries.

Fifth, we hope to create new things through cross-fertilization and integration, and try to break down professional barriers, such as intelligent engineering and creative design, food, drug and environmental crime investigation technology, etc.

However, Li Peigen and Wu Zhengyang raised several reflections on the current adjustment of engineering majors. For example, in the field of higher engineering education, when traditional engineering majors are named "intelligent" or "smart", are they really smarter? Is it necessary to establish new majors based on technology (especially technology as a typical tool), equipment or products? Is the establishment of a large number of new majors the best path for interdisciplinary integration? Can the new majors cover its cutting-edge technology and reflect the true meaning of its knowledge system? The enrollment competitiveness of traditional engineering majors has weakened in the short term, and many universities have even cut a large number of traditional engineering majors. Does this mean that traditional engineering majors are not competitive or have become outdated?

Suggestion: Professional adjustments should abandon utilitarianism

"Facing the craze of opening new majors, we need to have a clear understanding. Merely being novel in name can easily breed chaos, and irrational major adjustments will mislead the needs of the talent market. Based on the influence of digital and intelligent technologies and the basic laws of talent growth, how should engineering majors adjust and respond?" Li Peigan and Wu Zhengyang put forward several suggestions in their paper.

The two researchers believe that for traditional engineering majors, the problems in their professional fields should be the "body" and new technologies should be the "use". It is reasonable to be cautious in opening single technology or tool majors and to open specific new majors (such as brain-like engineering) targeting the forefront of science and technology, provided that this type of major is oriented towards future needs and its objects and subject knowledge framework cannot be covered by existing engineering majors. However, the opening of such majors should only occur in a few first-class research universities with conditions. New applied majors opened to meet future needs for new skilled talents (such as AI-related) should also be temporarily limited to a few first-class applied universities that truly have the corresponding disciplinary accumulation and professional strength.

They also pointed out that the increasingly blurred boundaries of disciplines are a general trend, but the professional settings in my country tend to be increasingly refined. Too many new majors have led to a new round of excessive professional subdivision to a certain extent. Although the major is not a first-level discipline, but is at the intersection of the discipline system and social occupational needs, the development of science and technology has made the boundaries of the profession increasingly blurred. It is not possible to respond to the development of science and technology and the talent needs of enterprises by setting up a large number of new majors. Even some large foreign companies do not pay much attention to professional attributes when recruiting talents.

Li Peigen and Wu Zhengyang suggested that the adjustment of majors should abandon utilitarianism, have their own background and persistence, and should not cancel traditional or "unpopular" majors due to temporary difficulties. Although the current new majors claim to respond to new technologies and the forefront of industrial development, most of them could have been solved by redesigning professional boundaries or establishing new directions under the original traditional professional system. Colleges and universities should prevent blindly following technology and industrial economic hotspots and abandoning the subjectivity of talent training, and avoid the large-scale elimination of traditional engineering majors.