Industry Visits As An Assessment Tool

Under the new ABET criteria for judging the effectiveness of engineering and technology programs, the success of program graduates serves as an additional and necessary measure of program quality. This paper describes a structured, industry site visit program employed by each of the departments of the College of Engineering and Computer Science at California State University, Sacramento. The visits typically consist of plant tours and meetings with alumni and their supervisors. The alumni are asked to review their experiences since graduation, make general comments on the relevance of their education in their careers to date, and answer specific questions about their engineering education. These visits allow us to learn from our graduates what they are doing with their education, what was most valuable to them, and specific ways to improve the educational process. Additional, and unexpected, banefits of these outcomes assessment meetings are that the alumni tend to get more involved and active with the university, frequently offering significant financial and other support, and faculty report gaining renewed enthusiasm for their teaching.