Implementation of the Second-year course in an Engineering Professional Spine

Abstract

The objective of this paper is to document the experience of developing and implementing a second-year course in an engineering professional spine that was developed in a first-tier research university and relies on project-based core courses. The main objective of this spine is to develop the students’ cognitive and employability skills that will allow them to stand out from the crowd of other engineering graduates.The spine was developed and delivered for the first time in the academic year 2010-2011 for first-year general engineering students. In the year 2011-2012, those students joined different programs, and accordingly the second-year course was tailored to align with the different programs’ learning outcomes. This paper discusses the development and implementation of the course in the Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) department.

Incorporating Current Technology in an ECE Design Course

“…The course discussed in this paper is a second-year fall-term design, professional practice, and communication course within a four-year "spine" [1,2] tailored for ECE students in an engineering program. The course design project was devised to incorporate Internet of Things (IoT) technology as an overarching theme.…”