Benefits of Freshman Engineering Projects for Petroleum Engineering Students

Abstract

The engineering program at Texas A&M University includes a freshman "Introduction to Engineering" sequence for the first two semesters of the freshman year. The Qatar campus of Texas A&M University has four majors offered and all majors take this two semester sequence. The overview course covers many subjects for the students and these typically are very broad in scope. Both courses include at least one or several projects. Each year, freshmen student evaluations are critical of the perceived lack of applicability of the design project to petroleum engineering students. One possible reason for this perception could have been that during the first four years of program startup, there were no petroleum engineering professors involved in teaching this course. Nevertheless we noticed that the projects introduced important skills that petroleum engineers need. A review of the junior and senior curriculum and ABET outcomes confirm this. In this paper, we discuss some of the projects offered in these freshman courses, and the skills it promotes. We also present the results of a survey that included almost all of the students at Qatar campus from all four engineering majors and compare the responses of the students in terms of the perceived benefits of these courses and the skills it promotes. Proper design of projects for inclusion of necessary skills and tools for petroleum engineers is recommended to ensure students are equipped with appropriate competencies needed for upper division classes. Our results show that the skills promoted by projects currently being implemented are in line with the skills that petroleum engineering students need for their upper devision classes as well as their careers.

The longer term impact of fundamental engineering skills on students in higher level undergraduate courses

“…Over the past couple years, ENGR 111 projects have been modified to capture more of the skills needed in CHEN and PETE majors [11] and the result observed in response to these statements might indicate our success in doing so because the sophomores in these majors seemed to be more positive in their responses. It is also interesting to compare the responses to S7, S8 which show that CHEN and PETE seniors did not think that what they learned in ENGR 111 concerning preparing tables and graphs, time management skills was of use to them.…”

Proposal of a learning tool for introduction to petroleum engineering subject and recommendations for modification of petroleum engineering curricula in Colombian universities

“…Additionally, a project-based approach is suggested to teach the class of introduction to petroleum engineering where critical competencies may be focused on the solution of study cases (which could be supplied by professors in advanced subjects); this teaching method has proved goods results because it provides more opportunities for students to be exposed to the different engineering processes and concepts, connect the different important engineering skills such as teamwork and communication to engineering coursework, and gain an understanding of engineering problems and the different ways in which they can be solved [9].…”

“…Table 1 provides one insight into some suggestions for this idea which could be a strategy to enable formation for an increasingly demand for specific competencies. As a final recommendation, the bulk of suggested and current professional subjects should implement a project-based methodology, since it is proved that this kind of educational approach provides a larger exposure to engineering processes and concepts, soft skills and reality cases [9]. Including the training focused on projects may also enable the application of essential knowledge in real work such as MS Excel use, technical report writing, programming and project planning which are competencies highly demanded.…”

Using Peer Evaluation to Assess Individual Performance in Team Projects for Freshmen Engineering Students in the Middle East

“…We take advantage of the multidisciplinary environment that the freshman courses bring about, to have the students learn how to work in teams by assigning group projects (3,4) . Many instructors agree that group projects are excellent learning exercises and training opportunities (5) .…”