Engineering technology programs in U.S colleges and universities were established by the 1970s. Their separate existence from engineering has resulted in mixed outcomes—some good, some bad, and some outright ugly. By ugly we mean the confusions generated by the divide between engineering and engineering technology. In this paper, critical analysis of the good, the bad, and the ugly is presented. It begins with a brief history of engineering technology as a discipline, discusses the current situation, points out the fact that few advanced countries practice such a divide, and offers some suggestions for improvement.
