THE EVOLUTION OF THE TECHNICAL PROJECT AS THE FINAL WORK IN THE SPANISH AGRICULTURAL ENGINEERING STUDIES

摘要

In Spain, the different syllabus proposed for the engineering schools during the last decades have considered the technical project as the summit of the knowledge acquired by the students. Recently, in many Universities and engineering schools have progressively left aside the technical project and they have proposed other kind of final works, such as research works or professional reports. The success of this initiative in terms of the student satisfaction, learning outcomes, professional bodies' point of view, etc. is currently under discussion. This paper deals with the evolution of the technical project in the last thirty years, the difficulty level, styles of defence, tutorial aspects, examination boards, results etc., particularly in the Spanish Agricultural Engineering degrees. The same situation of other Universities that offer these degrees has been also compared. The paper presents a list of positive and negative aspects of the different options offered for the final work, considering the educational modern techniques and trends. It also gives a set of recommendations to enhance and improve the educational capabilities of the technical projects in the education of future engineers. Authors offer an experience based on more than 1,000 technical projects supervised and presented as final degree works over the last 20 years.