Lessons Learned from a First Attempt to Teach Systems Engineering as a Studio Art Class

Abstract

is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Engineering Education and a master's student in Systems Engineering at Virginia Tech, where she also completed her master's degree in Higher Education. She is the graduate assistant for the Rising Sophomore Abroad Program, a global engineering course and study abroad program for first year engineering students. Her primary research focuses on the design and assessment of global engineering programs, but she also studies the development of systems thinking and innovative thinking skills in engineering students. Before returning to graduate school, Kirsten worked for several years as a project manager and analytics engineer in the transportation industry.

Modelling the Design Systems Thinking Paradigm

“…Future research is required for application of these findings in education, and while there have been attempts to teach systems engineering using different formats, such as a studio art class [20], or as an entirely lab based course [21], the overall success of these attempts quantitively remains vague. The future of our research will be into the application of design thinking and training techniques to help accelerate the development of systems engineering and design skills for Bachelor's students within the SED program at the University of Illinois in order to better prepare them for the industry of their choice.…”