Teaming Freshmen With Seniors In Design

The Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering at Texas A&M University offers design-focused courses for freshman and senior engineering students. The senior-level courses constitute the curriculum’s capstone design experience. Seniors work in teams of four to five on a design project suggested by industry clients. Many of these same projects are used in the freshmanlevel course. These projects are used to introduce freshmen and lower-division transfer students to the engineering design process and to illustrate job possibilities available to program graduates. A unique aspect of the freshman and senior design courses, and the focus of this paper, is the inclusion of seniors in the freshman design teams. These seniors assume the role of “senior leader” and serve as managers and mentors. As managers, senior leaders answer questions that the freshmen may have about their design projects or the design process. Senior leaders also facilitate group discussions and act as mediators during times of team turbulence. Finally, senior leaders provide a weekly performance evaluation for each of their freshman team members. Beyond their management responsibilities, many senior leaders provide mentoring to the freshmen in their teams. Senior leaders provide freshmen with information about instructors, summer internship opportunities, departmental laboratory and computer resources, and student clubs, among other topics. Placement of senior leaders in freshman design teams yields numerous benefits. Seniors get an opportunity to obtain management experience before graduation. Freshmen get an opportunity to meet others in their major and to receive much greater mentoring than can be provided through traditional instructor/student contact. This paper describes the process through which senior/freshman teaming is achieved in these courses. In addition, the paper explores freshman, senior, and instructor reactions to the program.