History for an engineer (the issue about the content of the course "History" in a technical university)

The article analyses the possible ways of the educational content formation of classes in terms of the competence-oriented approach on the example of the course "History". Modern educational standards of higher education do not regulate the content of Humanities in technical universities, and general cultural competence, which Humanities should develop, as a rule, are aimed at teaching a kind of cross-professional (interdisciplinary) skills directly unrelated to any specific knowledge and therefore not involving the strict theme of the lectures or practical classes. Under these conditions, the specific content of courses is not just creative task of the individual teacher, it is transformed into the broad and principled for humanitarian knowledge discussion about the need for the development of the Humanities for a future engineer and about the possible specifics of the teaching these courses in technical universities. The author considers it is necessary to allocate a special kind of an engineer’s activity as design and to form the content of the Humanities based on the specifics of the engineering profession. Elaborating on this thesis, the author identifies the following objectives of the course "History" in a Technical University: classes of History should give a future specialists a clear understanding that his activities has the conditionality of the social context. Classes should generate the positive perception of engineering and the engineering profession, and finally they should contribute to the methodological training of the student. The macro-explaining model of historical development underlying the content of the course can serve these tasks. This model can actualize a historical material with the best for the future engineer's perspective - modernization theory, the stages of economic growth, etc., the achievements of the new social history, including biographical or local history, aiming at the reconstruction of the past from a position of studying including various professional groups and interdisciplinary approaches (synergetic approach), the expansion of the international context of the study of native history.