Minors In Engineering Studies: Teaching Technology To Non Engineers, First Results

The Minor in Engineering Studies was designed by the college of engineering at our school to help increase technological literacy of the non-engineering students at our university. This program officially started in fall 2006 with little to no publicity. We have a program that started small and is now growing very little publicity by the college of engineering. In this paper we will discuss the challenges, and the success of the first complete year of offering this program at our college. The paper will discuss case studies of the type of students we originally attracted and the type of students that we think this program will best be suited. The paper will also describe some of the successful ideas and classes in our program. We show how the program could team up with different departments and strengthen the minor as well as expand the diversity of the subjects and classes that we can offer to our students. Finally we examine ways to offer successful classes by discussing some of the experiences our team gained during the last three terms.