Effective Implementation Of Industry Sponsored Senior Design In A Civil Engineering Program

Abstract

The success of the industry-sponsored Civil Engineering senior design program at Stevens Institute of Technology and its impact on meeting the learning objectives established for the twosemester capstone design sequence is described. The effective use of industry sponsors to formally assess the student's performance will be presented as will the recruitment of sponsors. The dynamics of group size and structure will also be discussed. The information presented in this paper is based on the five years that the program has existed at Stevens. Initially established to meet ABET 2000 criteria and introduce Civil Engineering students to real world design problems, the industry-sponsored program began during the 2000-01 academic year with two industry consultants (both Stevens Alumni), and 18 students. This program has grown to involve eight industry sponsors and 40 students. The diversity of these projects parallels the Civil Engineering profession and provides the students with first hand exposure of real industry projects, practices and regulations. Additional benefits of this program include the continual interaction between students and practitioners. Schedules are established and must be adhered to, technical writing and oral communication skills are honed while the students become responsible to an outside consultant. This relationship in many cases has facilitated job placement for the graduates of the program. Introduction: With the implementation of ABET 2000 several changes had to be made within the engineering curriculum at Stevens Institute of Technology. One of the major changes included revising the capstone design to accomplish some of the goals set forth in ABET Criteria a through k and meet the outcomes established by the Civil Engineering program. In order to successfully accomplish these outcomes and provide each Senior Civil Engineering graduate with a comprehensive design experience, external industry sponsors were recruited to work with the students. The first industry sponsors were members of the Civil Engineering Visiting Committee (CEVC). These Professional Engineers thought the opportunity to mentor and work with the Stevens graduates would be a worthwhile undertaking for both the sponsors and the students.

Contributions of the Industry Involvement in Civil and Environmental Engineering Capstone Design Projects

“…Capstone faculty view the course as a means to provide students with an opportunity to apply what they have learned throughout their undergraduate career through an open-ended design project in an environment that simulates the real world 13 . The benefit of the involvement of practicing engineering professionals has been discussed in the literature 14,15,16,17,18 .…”

“…Brunell and Schaefer Jr 16 reported that the industry sponsors of the senior design program felt the time and money were well spent educating the engineers of the future, some of whom became their employees. They observed that the optimum group size of students was four with one of those being proficient in drawing.…”

“…Teams of less than four tended to be overwhelmed by the many components they were responsible to consider during the design process. Teams with more than four tended to have members who did not contribute sufficiently and the team tended to overwhelm the consultant 16 .…”

Enhancing The Capstone Design Experience In Civil Engineering

“…Design elements are typically incorporated across various courses. Examples of strategies used to help relate theory to practice include servicelearning projects, experiential-learning, case-based projects, and industry-based or industrysponsored projects 4,5,6,7,8,9 . The capstone design course is an integral part of the approach of many undergraduate CE programs.…”