Education in acoustics and noise control: A liberal arts perspective.

Abstract

An education in acoustics and noise control is traditionally provided by engineering and/or graduate schools; however, since its inception in 1998 the Acoustics Program of Columbia College Chicago has graduated 99 students with a liberal arts background; 71 were hired by consulting firms in acoustics & noise control and by manufacturers, 65 are still employed in the field, 8 went on to graduate school, and 1 was recently voted into the “40 under 40” list of outstanding professionals by Consulting Specifying Engineer Magazine. Our program currently offers 14 undergraduate courses in acoustics and it draws upon the college’s resources for calculus, physics, technical writing, management, accounting, architecture, and programming courses. We are in the second year of a scholarship program with the Institute of Acoustics at Tongji University, and we recently hosted the Highway Traffic Noise seminar from the National Highway Institute. Besides well-equipped test laboratories and a very wide array of computer modeling tools, a vinyl album cutting lathe was recently added to the program’s inventory and starting in 2010, our students will be required to demonstrate that they have the skills to prepare for, schedule, and execute a very complex task that leaves no room for errors.