Engineering 101

BY DEREK S. B. DAVIS

In engineering, as in most professions, some students enter college with a clear career track in mind: “Bioengineering—I always knew that’s what I wanted.” But others need to look around, to test the waters.

Until last fall, there was no organized way for freshmen to do this at Penn Engineering. “Curriculum deferred” students—those who hadn’t yet chosen a major—weathered a trial-and-error year, wending their way through various specific introductory courses. Now they have EAS 101, which presents a hands-on introduction to all branches of engineering at Penn.

Soon after becoming dean, Eduardo Glandt established a committee to study the “freshman-year experience” at the School. The committee came up with a general outline for an introductory course and chose David Pope, professor of materials science and engineering, to teach it.

The course—which Pope calls “a sort of dim sum of the School”—is at the forefront of Penn Engineering’s career guidance efforts, which also include career fairs and regular one-on-one meetings between faculty and students. If space allows, EAS 101 is also open to freshmen who have chosen a major but may feel uncertain about their choice. Last year, one student even enrolled from outside Penn Engineering, then decided to switch to engineering.

Looking back on his own undergraduate days in engineering (not at Penn), Pope, who has taught at the School since 1968 and also serves as University ombudsman, recalls that senior faculty had little interest in freshman. Left to flounder, many students transferred out of engineering.

EAS 101 was set up to counter that drift. Pope chooses top-ranked students from each department to serve as teaching assistants as part of “a genuine attempt to immediately make (the curriculum deferred students) find their connection to the school.” He also takes a hands-on part in the daily detail: “I read all the lab reports and make humorous, but hopefully insightful, remarks about their writing.”

According to Pope, other engineering schools have adopted an introductory approach based on such models as design teams and competitions. From his perspective, “none of them has the ability to give the students a sense of what goes on in the different departments in an interesting and compelling way.” Pope’s tack was to make a series of “laboratory experiences” in each department the centerpiece of the course.

Two class periods long, each lab focuses on a typical but often complex experiment. One example last year was a chemical engineering lab on gene splicing of E. coli bacteria to make them glow in the dark. In another, students used an inexpensive accelerometer (“the guts of a car airbag,” notes Pope) which they strapped to their waists, then assumed Jim Carrey poses—standing on one foot, leaning off balance—to test which body position is most stable. This was actually an exercise in statistical analysis, with meaningful results showing up only after data had been collected on 10-15 subjects.

Laura Sadow, now on track as a sophomore in mechanical engineering, was one of the course’s guinea pigs in its first year. She knew she wanted to be an engineer but came to Penn undecided on which field to enter: “Most of the men in my family are engineers, but with few exceptions they focus on structural, so that is the only field to which I have ever really been exposed. Not only did the labs teach me a lot, but interacting with upper-class engineers helped me see exactly what each major involves.”

She was particularly delighted with the 3D modeling program ProEngineer, and with her TA, a mechanical engineer. “When he talked about the work he had done in class or his experiments in the GRASP lab, I knew that I wanted to be a mechanical engineer. I found him to be extremely helpful, not only in the course but afterwards, choosing my classes and major.”

Her only reservations about EAS 101 involve the amount of time spent on non-engineering- related topics. The emphasis on ethics, for example, was “a nice addition but it didn’t fit well into this particular course.”

Student evaluations of the course generally agreed with her assessment—as does Pope. “We got too ambitious last year,” he says. This year’s course will be built entirely around the labs, though still stressing student reports and teamwork.

Under Dean Glandt, career guidance has become a watchword at Penn Engineering.With EAS 101, the School has broken new ground and created a model for engineering institutions across the country.