A case study of a college-wide first year undergraduate engineering course

A discipline-specific first year introductory course has been the norm in engineering education. Most of these courses are often theme-based and use engineering design as a device to emphasize the relationship between the various components of a field like Electrical and Computer Engineering. Online learning has also been incorporated in such common courses to enhance student experiences. As an alternative to a first year discipline-specific engineering course, there have been recent efforts to develop common first year engineering courses that target all engineering disciplines. One rationale for such a common courses has been an early instillation of common engineering education elements like ethical and social dimension of engineering design. A problem-based curriculum is often used in such first year introductory engineering courses to also ensure that students find relevance in the Physics and Math course being taken in the first two years of engineering. Students are also challenged to work on a design project in a multi-disciplinary team. A college wide engineering course allows students to learn about various engineering disciplines and wisely choose an engineering discipline. In this paper, we introduce the “Introduction to Engineering” freshman course offered to all students enrolled in the College of Engineering. The course consists of lectures, labs, recitation sessions, and a competition. Students are introduced to the major responsibilities of engineers, presentation skills, documentation, teamwork, problem solving, design process, ethics, and the basic concepts in each of the six engineering disciplines offered in the College. We evaluate the course outcomes by collecting and analyzing the student´s feedback over 2 years. The results are very encouraging and reflect a positive learning experience. We share some of the challenging multidisciplinary project ideas offered to the students. We also discuss the topics covered in the course- and the relationship of each topic to the ABET criteria.