In an effort to bring even more real-world value to the already-practical study of engineering, Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology is launching a curriculum in engineering design.

Believed to be the first such bachelors program at a US-based engineering school, the new curriculum combines design studio classes, off-campus partnerships with industry, and hands-on experience with machine shops, rapid prototyping, software programming, and computer-aided design. “The idea is for the students to experience the design process more fully than they could during traditional engineering classes,” Patsy Brackin, engineering design director and an ASME Fellow, told Design News. “We’re trying to give them practical experience.”

Brackin said the new program was motivated in part by the rapidly changing engineering landscape. Increasingly, she said, the lines between traditional disciplines—such as electrical, mechanical, and computer science—are blurring. More often than not, mechanical products now employ microcontrollers and software, and engineers need to be comfortable working across those boundaries. “We need this sort of broad-based engineer who can communicate across disciplines and understand the hands-on aspects of design,” Brackin told us.

The new program will call on engineering students to produce product ideas and work in design teams as early as their freshman year. In the design studios, students will create products for disabled children and adults, work on solutions for the National Academy of Engineering’s Grand Challenges, and team up with external clients on projects. They will also learn how to make oral pitches to outside clients and even to local news media, who are invited to final class presentations.

“We actually have first-quarter freshmen making product presentations and being filmed by TV crews,” Brackin said. “Our students, when they graduate, will know how to present their ideas to other people because they’ve been doing it every quarter under stress.”

Students in the program will receive a degree in general engineering, with a concentration of their choice in manufacturing, software engineering, or biomedical engineering. The school also plans to add three more concentrations—robotics, entrepreneurship, and electrical engineering—as part of its program over the next few years.

The Indiana-based school, which perennially appears at the top of US News & World Report’s engineering rankings, will also continue to offer the traditional curriculums, such as mechanical, electrical, civil, chemical, and biomedical engineering. The new engineering design curriculum will join those other programs in the 2018-2019 school year.

The new curriculum could be the only one if its kind at the undergrad level in the US. Stanford University has a Design Impact Engineering degree and Northwestern University has a Design Innovation engineering degree, but both are at the master’s level. Degrees that are similar but not identical include Northwestern’s BS in Manufacturing & Design Engineering and the University of Canterbury’s (in New Zealand) School of Product Design for engineers.

RELATED ARTICLES:

Brackin said the new program is geared toward enabling students to hit the ground running after they receive their bachelor’s degree. She expects larger employers to continue to look for students in the more traditional EE and ME silos, but believes small- to medium-sized engineering employers will like the idea of hiring cross-disciplinary students who understand the entire design process.

She sees the new program as a way to keep US companies competitive in a strong global market. “The US is in intense competition, and the way to remain competitive is to get smarter about how we do things,” Brackin told us. “I truly believe that the way to remain competitive is to have better designers.”

Senior technical editor Chuck Murray has been writing about technology for 34 years. He joined Design News in 1987, and has covered electronics, automation, fluid power, and auto.