Matlab for first-year college engineers

We present our approach to introducing Matlab to first-year engineering students without declared majors. Matlab is a widespread tool for computation, which has experienced a significant increase in usage. Upper-level courses in particular require students to complete assignments and projects using this versatile software. However, without a separate required course offering in the first-year curriculum, students oftentimes find themselves learning Matlab once they reach advanced courses. Taking into account the various applications of Matlab for different departments and first-year students who are undecided on their majors, a separate course for Matlab may prove excessive and lack sufficient focus. We embed a sequence of six Matlab lectures in an introductory engineering design course required by all first-year engineering students. The lectures focus on introducing the fundamental data structure of a matrix, programming constructs of loops, conditionals, and functions, and basic numerical and graphical statistical analysis. The selection of topics accounts for some of the most common applications across engineering majors, drawing playful examples from image and signal processing and statistical analysis. We discuss our experiences and curriculum developments for a period of four years over which the Matlab sequence evolved. We also address some of the logistical matters of using homework assignments versus examinations.