Engineering Economics and Its Role in the Engineering Curricula

Engineering economics is a field that addresses the dynamic environment of economic calculations and principles through the prism of engineering. It is a fundamental skill that all successful engineering firms employ in order to retain competitive advantage and market share. Many schools across the country have integrated courses in engineering economics for their students, thereby providing them with the tools to optimize profits, minimize costs, analyze various scenarios, forecast fluctuations in business cycles, and more. Despite the importance of this field, many universities are unable to effectively teach economic concepts to engineering students in ways they are able to understand. A survey by Lavelle, et al. displayed that fewer than half of participants used effective educational practices (i.e. collaborative grouping) when teaching engineering economics. By promoting a more engaging and holistic learning approach, students can have the opportunity to become better problem solvers. Accordingly, ABET (Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology) has published strict course outcome requirements for accredited programs. It is the intent of this paper to highlight various methods of teaching engineering economics to students in ways that maximize learning, as well as emphasize its importance for the modern engineer. Through the vigilant implementation of various teaching styles, experiential learning techniques, and integrated curricula, engineering students can successfully bridge the gap between the real world and the classroom. These can be achieved through a variety of mediums, one of which includes collaborative learning. An article by Prism succinctly highlights the benefits: (1) Higher levels of achievement; (2) Greater academic self-esteem; (3) Solving more complex problems; (4) Positive relationships.