Multidisciplinary Student Experiences In A Liberal Arts Engineering Program

A two-semester senior undergraduate design sequence has been developed for an engineering program in a liberal arts college. The courses provide a wide range of design experiences including: study of structured design methodologies, individual and team projects, prototype construction, communication of design results, incorporation of industrial design problems, and experience in a multidisciplinary design environment. The first semester course uses individual projects proposed by each student as a means of developing an understanding of structured engineering design methods. The wide variety of individual projects initiated by the students provided a broad spectrum of engineering design problems for the entire class to study. The experience gained through individual design projects enables students to effectively participate in multidisciplinary team projects. Multidisciplinary design team experience is achieved in the second semester of the sequence. Student engineers are teamed with industrial participants with engineering backgrounds different from that of the students. Results are described from the first offering of this sequence to fourteen students at Hope College from the 1996/97 academic year.