Mellini, M. A. (2021, July), Multidisciplinary Approach to the First Year Engineering Design Project  Paper presented at 2021 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access, Virtual Conference. 10.18260/1-2--37521

\bibitem{asee_peer_37521}
  Mellini, M. A. (2021, July), \emph{Multidisciplinary Approach to the First Year Engineering Design Project}
  Paper presented at 2021 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access, Virtual Conference.
  10.18260/1-2--37521

Monica A. Mellini P.E..  "Multidisciplinary Approach to the First Year Engineering Design Project".  2021 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access, Virtual Conference, 2021, July.  ASEE Conferences, 2021.  https://peer.asee.org/37521 Internet.  20 Apr, 2024

\bibitem{asee_peer_37521}
  Monica A. Mellini P.E..
  "Multidisciplinary Approach to the First Year Engineering Design Project".
  \emph{2021 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access, Virtual Conference, 2021, July}.
  ASEE Conferences, 2021.
  https://peer.asee.org/37521 Internet.  20 Apr, 2024

@INPROCEEDINGS{asee_peer_37521
author = "Monica A. Mellini P.E."
title = "Multidisciplinary Approach to the First Year Engineering Design Project"
booktitle = "2021 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access"
year = "2021"
month = "July"
address = "Virtual Conference"
publisher = "ASEE Conferences"
note = {https://peer.asee.org/37521}
number = {10.18260/1-2--37521}
}

TY  - CPAPER
AB  - Our College is a minority serving community college in a large metropolitan area which is
the academic home of several thousand STEM students, many of whom will transfer into
baccalaureate degree programs in engineering, computer science, the sciences, and technology
fields. In the first two years of college, and particularly under conditions of uncertainty and
material problems precipitated by a pandemic, STEM students face barriers to attainment of
educational and career goals. First-year STEM students may not feel a sense of “belonging” in
their chosen major or may not have even selected a program of study. Second year students face
a “critical juncture” as they approach transfer to a 4-year school. At this point, many STEM
students change majors or leave higher education altogether. Engineering education research
points to feelings of isolation as contributing factors to lack of persistence in the engineering major
(Johnson & Sheppard, 2004; Packard, et al, 2011; Reyes, 2011).
One way to promote persistence among students who have selected STEM is to assist
individual students in developing a professional identity. Professional identity development is the
process of “becoming” a practitioner, including the reconciliation of professional identity with
one’s other identities (such as gender and cultural identification). An effective path toward
assimilating a professional identity is participation in the STEM community and in the
performance of work that is authentic to professional practice.
All engineering students and many other STEM majors at Our College take a freshman
level course called “Introduction to Engineering Design.” Like similar courses in virtually every
engineering curriculum, this course features development of fluency in engineering vocabulary,
an introduction to some of the technology tools of engineering, and a project-based learning
approach featuring a strong teamwork component. The course helps to promote professional
identity development by exposing students to authentic engineering practice.
A weakness of such a course is lack of a multidisciplinary presentation of engineering.
Rather, engineering is presented as the employment of a set of skills centered around technology
tools. By incorporating features of liberal education into the first engineering course, the resulting
engineering practice demands attention to critical thinking in conjunction with the application of
technical skills.
This paper presents the author’s experience of incorporating historical, social, political, and
economic lenses into the introductory engineering course by assigning team projects to address
challenges of COVID-19 in refugee camps.
The project assignment will provoke questions such as:
§ Does this make sense?
§ How is this going to work?
§ What assumptions are embedded in the solution imaginary?
§ How much data will this generate?
§ Who will monitor, collect, and process the data?
§ What follow-up actions will be triggered?
The assignment promotes development of a mindset to deal with uncertainty while facing
complex contemporary problems. Students are challenged to consider more than just the
mechanical or electronic design aspects of their project but must also think about how technologies
will be used in a particular social and cultural setting, and how their solution will scale up to a
population of many thousands of people.
Multidisciplinary Approach to the First Year Engineering Design Project
References
Johnson, M. J., and Sheppard, S. D. (2004) "Relationships Between Engineering Student and
Faculty Demographics and Stakeholders Working to Affect Change*." Journal of
Engineering Education 93.2: 139.
Packard, B. W. L., Gagnon, J. L., LaBelle, O., Jeffers, K., & Lynn, E. (2011). Women's
experiences in the STEM community college transfer pathway. Journal of Women and
Minorities in Science and Engineering, 17(2).
Reyes, M. E. (2011). Unique challenges for women of color in STEM transferring from
community colleges to universities. Harvard Educational Review, 81(2), 241-263
AU  - Monica A. Mellini P.E.
CY  - Virtual Conference
DA  - 2021/07/26
PB  - ASEE Conferences
TI  - Multidisciplinary Approach to the First Year Engineering Design Project
UR  - https://peer.asee.org/37521
DO  - 10.18260/1-2--37521
ER  -