Promoting Professionalism in Traditional and Nontraditional Ways

摘要

For a several years our Mechanical Engineering program has had a one semester hour senior seminar. The purpose of the class is to promote professionalism and ethical behavior as senior students transition to the professional workplace. This supports one of our program objectives. Recent assessment data suggested that the course had not really been fulfilling its stated purpose. This paper describes changes that have been made to help the course better achieve its objectives. The first change was to bring in a number of outside speakers who could relate their real world life experiences to those of the students. On a regular basis, we now bring into our class speakers who give presentations on the following topics: Experiences the engineer will face early in his career (by a recent graduate). Experiences the engineer will face by the time he reaches mid career (by someone who has graduated 10-15 years ago). Financial planning by a certified financial planner. Intellectual property presentation by the university's director of intellectual property. These topics were suggested by our industrial advisory board based on interviews they conduct with our students twice each academic year.