Innovation In A Large Scale Study Abroad Program In Engineering (original) (raw)
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Developing A Study Abroad Opportunity For Engineering Undergraduates
2003 Annual Conference Proceedings
The Boston University College of Engineering, in cooperation with the Division of International Programs and the Technical University of Dresden (TUD) in Dresden, Germany, inaugurated a study abroad program in spring 2001 designed specifically for second-semester sophomore engineering undergraduates at Boston University. The program enables engineering undergraduates to incorporate a study abroad experience in their undergraduate degree programs while continuing to make normal progress toward their degrees. Prior exposure or facility with German is not expected before starting the program, but students must participate in an intensive German-language course while in Dresden. The TUD was chosen as a partner in developing this program because Boston University already had a small program and a resident director established at this site. In addition, the TUD had appropriate faculty and laboratory facilities available to teach the requisite science and engineering courses in English. While in Dresden, students take three of four technical courses taught in English by full-time faculty of the TUD, a sociology course also taught in English, and an intensive German language course. The technical courses are based on the same textbooks and syllabi used in Boston and provide comparable laboratory exercises. All courses are Boston University courses, thereby avoiding the transfer credit complications. The semester begins in early February and ends in mid-July. This paper will explain our rationale for choosing this model for an engineering study abroad program, our view of the advantages of this model and the processes undertaken to establish the program. We will report on our experiences with the program to date, and on student outcomes.
International Study As A Component Of The Undergraduate Experience In Engineering
2005 Annual Conference Proceedings
External advisors (alumni and industry) stress the importance of international experience, awareness of global issues, and cultural diversity awareness as desirable traits of new-hire engineers. Similar goals appear in the ABET 2000 criteria. The Mechanical Engineering Department at The University of Texas at Austin is developing an International Engineeering Program with the goal of increasing the number of undergraduate students with international experience. A pilot six-week summer program in 2004 involved nine students earning six credit hours in Grenoble, France. The program consisted of an upper-division technical elective "Engineering Standards and Industrial Policy in a Global Environment" and an American history course, "American Foreign Policy." Student performance and feedback from this pilot semester yielded positive results, and based on this success two additional programs are planned for Summer 2005. Both of these will be two-course, six-credit hour programs, one held at INSA Toulouse, France, and the other at University College London. This paper reports on the benefits of the international studies program to our students and faculty, and the evolution of the program offerings to take advantage of lessons learned. Program financing is discussed as are curricula development, student recruiting and advising, and advanced instructional technology requirements including classroom enhancement tools and electronic portfolios. Future plans for the program include a full spring semester abroad, extension of the summer program to Latin America, and a possible joint master's degree program. These expanded international study options will be available to students in all College of Engineering departments.
Twelve Years of Short-Term Study Abroad Programs: Engineering in a Global and Societal Context
2017 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition Proceedings
is the Robert L. Rooke Professor of chemical engineering. She earned her B.S. in chemical engineering from Cornell University, and her M.S. and Ph.D., also in chemical engineering, from the University of Virginia. Her primary research focus is on engineering pedagogy at the undergraduate level. She is particularly interested in active, collaborative, and problem-based learning, and how these can be applied to improve conceptual learning. She is also interested in the ways hands-on activities and technology in general and games in particular can be used to improve student engagement.
2007
The Bagley College of Engineering at Mississippi State University (MSU) has struggled, like many other schools, to get students to participate in study abroad programs. Also at MSU, again similar to many other institutions, the university and college clearly recognize the need for students to better understand and have some experience in the global environment in which they live and will practice engineering. In order to expose engineering students to skills and experiences that cannot be taught in the classroom alone, and to develop better leaders and communicators with an understanding of the impact engineers have globally in government and industry, the college recently created the Center for Engineering Student Excellence (CESE). Since a key component of CESE is global awareness, the college is striving to offer a variety of study abroad opportunities in order to make it as convenient as possible for engineering students to fit an international experience into their program of study.
The Shaping Of Virginia Tech’s International Engineering Education Program
2007 Annual Conference & Exposition Proceedings
Virginia Tech's strategic plan recognizes the need for its engineering graduates to have a more global outlook. Today's engineer is more likely than ever to interact with people from a variety of cultures and to be involved with projects that span across continents. The institutional goal of increasing students' global awareness put more focus on establishing an international department at the Dean's level in the College of Engineering. This paper will discuss the development of this office and the administrative efforts to raise the percentage of the university's engineering students going abroad. It will show how to use existing resources such as faculty members that have individually developed international programs that reflect their passions, university level service departments, and student involvement. The faculty resource was drawn upon to create an International Programs Faculty Committee with the charge of setting policy and procedures involving the designation of target countries and the review of program and funding proposals, leveraging existing relationships, and creating new international opportunities. One key question for the faculty committee is: "How can this committee help the College of Engineering Faculty with their international collaborative research efforts?" will be addressed. To further administer this program, a study abroad advisor position was established to facilitate the development of a Student Engineers' Abroad Council and to chair the departmental international contacts committee.
ADFL Bulletin, 2014
The goal of this paper is to explore how American higher education may be better adapted to the needs of today's global society by means of a more integrated curriculum, one that rigorously partners the "hard skills" of math, the sciences, and engineering (the STEM and professional disciplines) with those supposedly "softer" ones derived through the arts and humanities. The authors believe that students will be better prepared for the challenges of the contemporary workplace through an education equally grounded in the sciences and the arts, including the study of varied sets of value systems, by pursuing dual degrees across those disciplines. Having pioneered one such effective and well-known model for the internationalization of engineering education, the five year dual degree (BA/BS) International Engineering Program (IEP) at the University of Rhode Island, Berka and Grandin propose the marriage of engineering and language/culture as a model or template for a meaningful and productive partnership between science and technology, the humanities, and society as a whole, potentially adaptable to all comprehensive institutions of higher education and to a broad range of disciplines. As the United States seeks answers to a growing crisis of cost and relevance in higher education, therefore, the IEP will be presented here as an inspiration and a model for much needed reform, made possible by the creative reorganization and integration of subject areas which formerly went their separate ways, but benefitted enormously by finding their common ground. The IEP model demonstrates the extent to which such an integrated curriculum relies on partnerships, not only across the disciplines within academia, but also partnerships between the academy and both the private and public sectors, between U.S. universities and institutions abroad which have themselves developed effective and innovative systems of higher education and provide significant competition, yet also inspiration to our own. The IEP, which provides young engineers with a broader and more liberal education, including cross-cultural understanding and communication skills, evolved from an unusual partnership between technology and the humanities and focuses on the acquisition of second language and cross-cultural communication skills, thereby preparing its students for careers in the global workplace. The authors hope that a discussion of the International Engineering Program, its founding, its development, its cost-effective character, and its outcomes, will inspire the creation of further such partnerships.
The University of Florida International Engineering Program: Beyond the Classical Formats
2010
Today new engineers must have a broader education/vision of the world. At the University of Florida College of Engineering (UF-COE), we believe that this is strongly bounded to research, development, and the opportunity to participate in international projects. . The UF-COE International Industrial Energy Management Consulting - Chile Program (IEP) aims to provide our students with an engineering consulting experience, but at the international level. In this work, we discuss the concept of internationalization of the curriculum, its importance, and connection with college education. The impact it has in our current students in and their future engineering careers as this experience puts them to a challenge that will make them very appealing to multinational companies. The difference between a hands on study abroad course and regular courses of this nature is also discussed. Finally some results are shown in terms of engineering energy savings recommendations, and the advantages of t...
International Experiences and the Implications for the Success of Engineering Programs
2018 IEEE International Conference on Teaching, Assessment, and Learning for Engineering (TALE), 2018
The working midst has become challenging due to the multicultural environment and the need of skills such as cultural understanding, are very important in the formation of an engineer. It has been like this for many years however, now more than ever. So, for engineering schools, internationalization has become, on top of others, another demand for the accomplishment of a good program. It became necessary to provide international academic experience for the students. For this reason, internationalization is now a strategy to raise the quality of courses and as another result of these efforts, to raise the engineering students' retention rate along the program. The goal of this paper is to present and discuss the internationalization process of a University's engineering school, with the objective of making the program more attractive and promoting the double diploma in order to higher the quality of the programs.
2012 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition Proceedings
Engineering, and Mathematics program and the Global Education, Awareness and Research Undergraduate Program (GEAR-UP). Fleming earned her Ph.D. in civil engineering from the University of California, Berkeley, and holds master's of science and bachelor's of science degrees in civil engineering from George Washington University and Howard University, respectively. Fleming's research interest is concentrated on the reform of engineering education, broadening participation in engineering, and the scholarship of teaching and learning.