A new introductory electrical engineering curriculum for the first-year student

This paper reports on the author´s experience with respect to a major revision of the introductory Electrical Engineering curriculum at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. The new curriculum incorporates classroom and laboratory experience in electrical engineering for first-year students. The new courses are based on the “spiral” approach to education in which concepts are introduced at an applications-oriented level, and then repeatedly revisited with successively greater levels of detail and theoretical sophistication. The plan that has been adopted was the result of extensive study within the department in which current students and alumni participated through surveys. An assessment plan and preliminary assessment results are discussed