A New Engineering Program That Introduces Design Workshop Courses

While the accreditation board clearly indicated which components that must be included in the engineering programs, we are free to arrange them so as to achieve our goals. It is the need for an engineering program oriented towards creativity, design ability and multidisciplinary approach, which led Université du Québec à Rimouski to include engineering workshops throughout the curriculum. The workshops use a problem based learning approach as distinct from the engineering science approach that has been the traditional norm. They allow the continual integration of knowledge and the development of designing skills. These workshops are arranged in a sequence, which assumes that design is a skill acquired with experience and based on a methodological process, tools and techniques. The paper describes the program’s structure and the content of the design workshops. It gives examples of real problems solved by students. Finally, it presents and discusses the nature of the foreseen changes that will be brought to the program.