Talk:School of Engineering, UNAM

Hi. The name of this particular school in Spanish is Facultad de Ingeniería. I was wondering if THE BEST translation of that is really 'Faculty of Engineering'. It's also been translated to 'Engineering Faculty' (on the right side column). Even tough the word 'faculty' in this context is correct, I kinda feel that THE BEST translation to English would be School of Engineering. The word 'faculty' is more often used to refer to the academic staff teaching in an educational institution.

A quick search on google will confirm what I'm stating. Also, search for articles with "school of engineering" and with "faculty and engineering" on wikipedia and you will see what I mean.

I hereby propose to change the name of this article to something as "School of Engineering (UNAM)". What do you guys think? Cerealito (talk) 20:13, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

In Spanish there is a great difference between a school and a Faculty, the main one being that a Faculty holds postgraduate studies, the UNAM has schools and faculties, so it would be confusing. Also if you check the wikipedia entry, is only North American that consider Faculty as being the teachers, so Wikipedia being a universal enciclopedia, should take this into account. I think is good as it is right now. McMaster Faculty of Engineering Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing University of Waterloo Faculty of Engineering Faculty Of Engineering Ruhuna

These are examples of a NA, European, British and Asiatic Universities that also define their engineering departments as faculty, don't think we should change all of them as well.

AS I stated before, in Mexico specially there is a great issue whether a division is a School or a Faculty, they even have different names, check the UNAM list of institutions to see what I mean, even in the history is stated when did it change it status from school to faculty, so it would be against the article itself to change the name.

Leonoel (talk) 03:05, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

In Spanish there is a great difference between a school and a Faculty the great difference you refer to does not exist in English, so if we change the article no one would get confused. I'm aware of that they might be a difference between the Spanish words Facultad and Escuela, but it seems to me that you're just translating word-for-word, and that's not how a good translation is done. As I said before, the article is OK as it is. What I'm trying to do is to improve it. You provide links to some faculties of engineering... those are fine. But please take a look at the websites of some of the best engineering education institutions in the world:

Stanford School of Engineering

MIT School of Engineering

Princeton School of Engineering

UCLA School of Engineering

Harvard School of Engineering

University of Tokyo School of Engineering

There are also lots of engineering institutions outside North America which name is 'School', so the term is not exclusive to that region. University of Birmingham School of Engineering

University of Queensland School of Engineering

Durham University School of Engineering

And even if it was, last time I checked Mexico was in North America ;). Again man, I'm just trying to improve the article. "Faculty" really feels like a clumsy translation to me...Cerealito (talk) 20:02, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

I get your point, but the problem, and I told you, and you didn't quote that, is that it is a status, that schools earn through a process, if we change the name, we should also change the history, because there is stated that when the institute became part of the faculty, it earned it rank as faculty, is more cultural than mere linguistics, in UNAM there are schools and faculties, and for the sake of the truth, we can't just put hem on the same ranks, you have the National School of Music, which is a school because it holds no postgraduate studies, and a lot of the satellite campi that weren't faculties, put a lot of effort in changing that status. If we decide to change it just would be so it could fit with USA terminology (I am in Tokyo University and the School of Engineering holds ONLY undergraduate studies, they have also the Department of Graduate studies)

So in conclusion, it is cultural, and it would be better to have an administrator to come and conclude the issue. At the moment the translation is good and I don't think the name holds any grammatical mistake, if you make a quick search on a dictionary, it states that faculty is also a part of an institution.

--Leonoel (talk) 22:27, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

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I understand how important it is to reflect these cultural differences between higher education in Mexico and higher education in English-speaking countries. That's why a mere word-by-word translation from Spanish "Facultad" to "Faculty" is not enough. English native speakers will NEVER get the difference between a "Facultad" and a "Escuela" if we do not explain what those words mean in (Mexican) Spanish, and we can only achieve this by doing a proper translation (i.e. respecting the whole semantics, instead of just taking a dictionary and writing the first word we find there). Tokyo University and the School of Engineering holds ONLY undergraduate studies really? that's not what it says here  (look how they have master's groups), and what about all the other schools I mentioned? they all have graduate programs. if you make a quick search on a dictionary, it states that faculty is also a part of an institution Man I thought I made myself clear from the beginning: there's nothing wrong with the word "faculty" I'm just saying that we can improve the article by translating correctly, not just using babelfish. Cerealito (talk) 23:14, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

OK, I edited the article on the section history to explain to a minimum why the school is called "Facultad" in Spanish. As you see I mention the availability of graduate studies as a condition to be called that _in spanish_. I still think the article should be called otherwise. I changed "Basic Science" to "Fundamental Science",

"Continuum Education" to "Continuing Education"

These is the kind of translation I'm talking about... semantics not just words... Cerealito (talk) 23:48, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Can we please change the name of the article to School of Engineering of UNAM???? In English Faculty means: the administrative staff and those members of the administration having academic rank in an educational institution. Using Faculty seems like a lame translation. I agree with the guy above who cited how other great schools call their engineering programs: school of Engineering. The school of Engineering in those universities also has graduate programs. I think calling it Faculty is confusing and gives the school of engineering of UNAM less prestige. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 169.231.35.121 (talk) 17:51, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

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