Building Community Through Clustered Courses

The Dwight Look College of Engineering typically enrolls 1400 to 1700 starting freshmen each year. The majority of these freshmen take their first-year math, science and engineering courses as a cluster. A cluster is a collection of approximately 100 students who have the same schedule for a group of three or four courses. These courses have some overlap in (or connection between) subject matter. Each course uses a teaming concept, with engineering dividing the students into teams of four, and math and science using lab partners. Since team assignments are not necessarily consistent between courses, a student may work in teams with several students from within the cluster who are not part of their engineering team. Consequently, even though the freshman class as a whole is quite large, common course scheduling and the use of teams within individual courses promote the development of a small community atmosphere.