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SESSION #: 1526 Integrating BME into ECE Curriculum: An Alternate Approach for

Robi Polikar, Ravi P. Ramachandran, Linda Head and Maria Tahamont Electrical and Computer Engineering, Rowan University, Glassboro, NJ 08028

Abstract: A time honored technique for introducing students to new and emerging topics is to offer electives; however, there are a few major drawbacks to this approach: the topic must be very fo- cused, either depth or breath must be sacrificed, and in either case, only a very limited amount of material can be covered, and students who may not have prior background about the topic often hesitate in electing a course in which they may very well find interest. Furthermore, as the num- ber of credits required for obtaining a BS degree decline over the years due to market pressures, so do the number of electives offered.

Against this background, we propose another time-honored technique, under a new setting, as a paradigm specifically designed for integrating novel content material into existing curricu- lum: develop new laboratory exercises tailored to provide content specific knowledge that relate to the focus areas of existing courses. In our implementation, we use biomedical engineering (BME) as the novel content and the electrical and computer engineering (ECE) as the core cur- riculum, with two primary objectives: to provide ECE students with fundamental and contempo- rary BME knowledge for future career and graduate study opportunities; and to improve stu- dents’ interest in and comprehension of ECE concepts by acquainting them with engineering so- lutions to real world problems in medicine. This approach has several advantages: (1) it is versa- tile, any number of topics can be integrated that the faculty deems important; (2) a broad spec- trum of topics can be addressed as they are distributed throughout the 4-year curriculum, (3) all students are exposed to novel content; (4) very little additional resources are required for imple- mentation; (5) students receive a more well-rounded and broad education within their specific disciplines; (6) experiments are integrated into existing courses, keeping credit count unchanged; “Proceedings of the 2005 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition Copyright © 2005, American Society for Engineering Education”

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Polikar, R., & Tahamont, M., & Ramachandran, R., & Head, L. (2005, June), Integrating Bme Into Ece Curriculum: An Alternate Approach For Meeting The Nation's Need For Qualified Bme Professionals Paper presented at 2005 Annual Conference, Portland, Oregon. 10.18260/1-2--15209