Polytechnic University has developed two new courses for freshman engineering students. These courses embody the spirit of the Gateway Coalition's goals to "invert the curriculum" and get "engineering up front," by drawing on the pioneering work of Gateway partner, Drexel University.

Introduction to Engineering and Introduction to Design are taken by all incoming engineering freshmen. These courses have three components:

• Laboratory tasks for hands-on skills and teamwork
• Recitation sessions to develop presentation skills and provide for faculty assessment
• Lectures that build listening and study skills.

Introduction to Engineering Fall - Requires students to develop competence in using e-mail, internet information sources, word processing, spread sheets, and presentation graphics. Some of the technological lab projects require two-person teams to compete using criteria that include both technical performance and cost of materials.

Introduction to Design Spring - Teams of 3 or 4 students work on tasks which require learning to use a computer-aided drafting program. Students must work on problem definition and brainstorming, information research, identification of relevant engineering principles, project management and scheduling, oral and written reporting, construction and testing.

The first course, Introduction to Engineering, is used extensively in Polytechnic's outreach to pre-college students.

They have offered a modified version to high school students on Saturdays during the academic year and on a compressed summer schedule. Future plans include expansion of this outreach to include two-year colleges that prepare many of their students to study at Polytechnic.¨

For further information, contact:

or see Contacts for Further Information

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