Teaching Engineering Economics For The First Time

There are many graduate assistants in engineering departments who are assigned to teach an Engineering Economics course at the undergraduate level as their first teaching assignment. Engineering Economics is one of the basic engineering courses in undergraduate engineering education. This course exposes the students to the fundamental concepts of Engineering Economy. Many graduate assistants will have a difficult time in preparing for the course (i.e., how to the structure the classes, what structure the exams should take, what grading policy should be used, what presentation tools and techniques should be used, and many other issues). I have found limited publications based on direct experiences in teaching Engineering Economics for the first time. The purpose of this paper is to discuss options in teaching an undergraduate level Engineering Economics class as they apply to a novice. Graduate students who will be teaching this course for the first time may find this paper useful. This paper presents my first teaching experience (in an Engineering Economics class, and includes my structuring of material to the time available, the structure of exams, the benefits of short quizzes, a grading policy, presentation tools and techniques). This paper presents the benefits that I gained during this teaching experience. Recommendations are made for using the teaching of Engineering Economics by graduate students as a component of their preparation for the professorate.