A year on: the highs and lows of a new engineering education system

Enlarge / A remote controlled volume controller. It can also raise and lower the volume to preset levels using the buttons. (credit: Chris Lee)

One of the last times I wrote anything for Ars Technica, I excitedly detailed our new electrical engineering curriculum . We were starting a pilot in February and I promised to write a follow up at the end of the academic year, which was in July. To be honest, I was so exhausted by the semester that I simply could not bring myself to write about it over the summer holiday.

Now, as we exit the Christmas holiday, I finally feel able to paint a picture. It’s not all bright colors and beautiful landscapes, but the view looks promising.

For those of you who don’t remember the earlier piece, a summary: we switched from a traditional course-based curriculum to a project-based curriculum, where the students had to choose how to show that they could use their electrical engineering knowledge. The philosophy is that being able to apply knowledge and skills in the particular right context is a good signal that someone understands what they’ve learned. That means we have to set the right context and provide the students the opportunity in order to acquire the right knowledge plus skills.