Enriching Freshman Design Through Collaboration With Professional Designers

Engineering educators over the last fifteen years have increasingly emphasized the teaching of design. As a result, design courses are not only being offered as a capstone experience in engineering majors; they are increasingly found at the freshman and sophomore level. This latter development has sparked a controversy about whether it is desirable, or even possible, to teach design to freshmen. As Carol McConica explains, in a 1996 edition of Chemical Engineering Education, "Freshman design courses are problematic because students do not yet have the fundamental engineering background necessary to solve real problems."