MODERN STUDENTS' IDEAS ABOUT THE IMAGE OF AN ENGINEER

The article has presented an aempt to determine the ideas of modern students about the image of an engineer. Today an engineer is a highly skilled professional who not only provides the work of the most complicated equipment, constructs technical devices and machines, but also forms the environment. The author's intention is to clearly understand what requirements to the engineer's personality are made by the state, and how the new generation of students see ahead an engineer themselves as, in order to determine the ways of training qualified engineering staff in demand for the labor market. Taking into account the provisions of the system-activity approach, a set of permanent elementary structural units has been identified, which are inherent to the new generation of students of the XXI century and reflect not only personal and professional qualities of future engineers, but also allow to explain the image of the modern engineer's personality in the minds of the new generation of students. In order to confirm the assumptions made, diagnostic and self-diagnostic assessments were carried out, as well as questionnaires and tests, the control points of which were carried out in 2001, 2004, 2010, and 2018. In total, 636 students of FSBEI “Transbaikal State University” were examined in dynamics. Thus, based on the obtained results, the ranking of personal, business and professional qualities of an engineer has been conducted. According to it the image of an engineer from the position of modern students has been compiled. This "image" helps to understand: how modern students see ahead themselves in the future profession; how this image correlates with the needs of modern society and the state assignment of the Russian Federation for training technical specialists and also makes think about significant changes in teaching methods and increasing the prestige of the engineering profession among modern students.