Examples of Freshman Design Education

This paper looks at specific examples of how engineering programs around the United States are revising freshman year curricula to include engineering design. It builds on a companion paper [1] which provides a framework for viewing, interpreting and categorizing the various approaches to exposing freshman-level students to key design qualities. Example courses are grouped according to this framework, and similarities and differences in approaches are discussed The paper goes on to reflect upon some of the challenges that design education, particularly at the freshman level, present to instructors and students. These include needs for: re-evaluating the role of instructor; re-evaluating the role of students; providing students with meaningful (and 'doable') open-ended tasks; assessing student performance; and rescoping expectations of future instructors and how the freshman year meshes with sophomore activities.