Education Innovation
Education of a student to become an engineer involves curriculum, extra-curricular activities, and linking with the practice of engineering. Being a department that supports a technology-focused research culture enables us to leverage our research strength to establish an innovative undergraduate educational environment enriched through collaboration with industry. The improvements we have made and continue to make in the education we offer our students relate to the curriculum, to the educational environment in the department, and to our links with industry.
Curriculum
Traditionally, engineering education tries to balance the fundamentals that engineers will need during their career and the skills that they need to start functioning as engineers upon graduation. The dynamic nature of the engineering enterprise makes it impossible and unwise to attempt to teach our students everything they need to know to function during their career. To restate the obvious, their education should include a strong set of fundamentals and the recognition of the need for and the ability to continually learn.
In discussions regarding curricular matters, faculty always keep in mind that an effective engineering curriculum focuses on what mechanical engineering is all about: analysis, design, and manufacture of systems of all scales. To that extent, all mathematics, science, and engineering courses relate their contents to analysis, design and manufacturing, the ultimate reason why they are part of the curriculum.We have introduced a flexible curriculum that emphasizes the fundamentals and gives students significant choice in designing their academic agenda to meet their career goals. Several unrestricted electives allow diverse career options in academic planning. Also, even if the students select a course that used to be required, they become more enthusiastic about it when they make the selection. A flexible curriculum allows students to develop their natural talents in addition to acquiring a solid engineering education.
Integration of courses better prepares students to deal with engineering problems. Toward this goal we have developed new courses that combine subjects previously taught separately. We would like to go further in integration and consider, even briefly, material from seemingly unrelated courses to introduce students early on to the interdisciplinary nature of engineering. A more focused and more integrated curriculum also leads to more communication among faculty. Faculty members have coordinated the assignments and experiments for different courses allowing students to view the same physical embodiment from different technical perspectives. As an added benefit, increased offering of multidisciplinary and applications-oriented courses brings students closer to engineering practice. Integration of topics should start in the first year as it does in the Introduction to Mechanical Engineering course.