Extracurricular learning program for professional skills development in engineering schools

This paper presents an extracurricular program called INSPIRE3 that has been implemented by the ETSEIAT (Escola Tècnica Superior d´Enginyeries Industrial i Aeronàutica de Terrassa), a center belonging to the UPC-BarcelonaTech (Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya). This program is mainly addressed to facilitate cross-curricular skills and abilities development among students through collaborative-project based learning. The projection of an attractive external image of engineering degrees offered by ETSEIAT in order to increase the enrollment in such degrees is a secondary goal of this program. Under INSPIRE3, several real, challenging and multidisciplinary engineering projects are currently under development. In this paper, INSPIRE3 motivation, program management and implementation process are described and a short description of projects under development is given as well.