About the Engineering Degree at Olin College

Transcription

1 Olin College Engineering Program v.2.3 Course Plan Guidelines VERSION DATE: October 7, 2009 This document is intended to help guide E students through making course decisions and creating a good course plan. It is best used in consultation with your adviser and/or faculty members in your area of concentration. Feedback is always welcome; please e@lists.olin.edu. About the Engineering Degree at Olin College The Engineering Degree program at Olin College has been created to give you the maximum flexibility to design a course of study that fits your interests. It allows you to take advantage of the full breadth of offerings at Olin and our sister schools to put together a targeted, interdisciplinary, or just plain unique program. However, with the freedom to choose your own courses comes some extra responsibility, and we ask you to demonstrate to us that you have chosen a direction of study that makes the most of the opportunities available to you at Olin. The way you do this is by developing a course plan. You use your course plan to do two things: to list the courses that you have taken or plan to take and show that they fulfill Olin s graduation requirements, and to provide the Engineering Program Group with some context for your choices. The purpose of this handbook is to give you some guidance in deciding on a course of study in Engineering and developing a course plan. The official word: from the Catalog (pp ): The Engineering Degree program offers a major in Engineering that is both rigorous and flexible. This program gives students the option to pursue new areas of engineering and interdisciplinary combinations of engineering and other fields. It is also intended to give the college mechanisms for investigating new areas and creating new concentrations... Students who choose the Engineering degree may specify a concentration, which is a set of classes that constitute a coherent area of study. A student s concentration appears on the diploma but not on the official transcript. The college offers designated concentrations in Bioengineering, Computing, Materials Science, and Systems. Alternatively, students may design a concentration in another area. Students who choose the Engineering degree must submit a concentration plan along with their declaration of major. The plan lists the courses the student intends to take to fulfill graduation requirements, and demonstrates that these courses (along with additional required courses) constitute a major in engineering that has depth, breadth, coherence, and rigor. The concentration plan must be signed by the student s adviser and two faculty members whose area of expertise is relevant to the proposed area of study (if the adviser s area is relevant, the adviser can count as one of the two). Concentration plans are reviewed by the Engineering Program Group. This group is responsible for checking the following criteria: Do the proposed courses constitute a major in Engineering that has breadth, depth, coherence and rigor? 1 of 8

2 Do the faculty who approved the plan have relevant expertise? Should other faculty be consulted? Is the plan feasible based on a reasonable forecast of course offerings? The availability of faculty and other resources determines which classes we can offer and their schedule, which may limit a student s ability to complete a particular concentration. Is the plan comparable to the designated concentrations and previous student- designed concentrations? If a student- designed concentration is named, is the proposed name accurate and appropriate? The designated concentrations are examples of recommended programs, but all course plans go through the same review process. The concentration plan is provisional. If approved and completed, a student may use it to graduate. Minor substitutions may be made with adviser approval; substantive changes require approval of the Engineering Program Group. Course plans What is a course plan? A course plan is a list of courses you plan to take to attain your degree in Engineering at Olin College, as well as some explanation as to how the proposed course list demonstrates breadth, depth, coherence and rigor. It enables your adviser, relevant faculty, and the EPG to assess these factors, keep track of your progress and, together with your transcript, confirm that you have completed your degree requirements. A course plan form is appended to this handbook. When do you need a course plan? If you decide to major in Engineering, you should submit your first course plan together with your Declaration of Major form during your sophomore year. You should also revise and resubmit your course plan if you make any substantive changes after the initial submission. Your adviser can help you determine when this would be necessary. Filling out the form: The form consists of three major parts. The first part asks you to list the courses that you plan to take, and to demonstrate that they fulfill the following credit requirements: Engineering: 46 credits Math and Science: 30 credits (of which 10 must be in math) The second part allows you to provide additional information about your chosen courses in order to clarify how they meet the requirements of breadth, depth, coherence and rigor (see below). Finally, there is a place for you to specify the name of a concentration to appear on your diploma; this is also the place to indicate whether you are pursuing one of the defined concentrations. What do you do with it? Print out your completed form. Discuss it with your adviser, and have her or him confirm that it fulfills the credit requirements in engineering, math and science. Visit two relevant faculty members and ask them to review it and to sign it if they approve of 2 of 8

3 your chosen courses and the concentration name, if applicable. Photocopy or scan the form and keep a copy for your personal records. Submit a copy to the Registrar s Office. What happens to it then? The Engineering Program Group reviews all course plans to ensure that they meet the four requirements. If there is a problem with any aspect of your course plan, we will contact you. We also use this form as the basis for a course audit to confirm that you are progressing towards graduation or have fulfilled all the requirements. How to create a great course plan Your best resources in designing a course plan are the faculty members in related areas. You should begin by consulting with these faculty members, ideally with a draft course plan in hand. Before it can be approved, your course plan must satisfy the credit requirements in math, science and engineering, and your adviser must confirm that it does. In addition, your course plan must demonstrate breadth, depth, coherence and rigor in your chosen discipline, and you will need the signatures of two relevant faculty members approving your proposed plan. Finally, the Engineering Program Group will review it to confirm that it fulfills the four criteria of breadth, depth, coherence and rigor. Breadth: Learn new things! While you are at college, you should be exposed to a wide range of ideas. Your course plan should include courses in more than one area or field of study. Depth: Go deep! You should be building a deep knowledge base in at least one area, so some of your courses should require one or more prerequisites in the same field (this usually means taking and level courses). Rigor: Stretch yourself intellectually! We encourage you to take upper-level courses that are deeply rooted in their intellectual field. Most college-level courses are rigorous; the primary exceptions are courses for non-majors that don t count towards the major (we probably won t accept courses like this as part of your plan). Coherence: Have a story! Your choice of courses should, collectively, make sense. This means that you might take multiple courses in one area (such as in the E: Bio concentration), or you could have courses in different areas that work together (like E: Sys). Finally, a course plan that includes classes from a variety of disciplines might demonstrate coherence in an area that cuts across traditional boundaries. For example, taking Signals and Systems together with Neurobiology would demonstrate coherence if you have decided to concentrate in Neuroscience. The list of courses that you provide should be as specific as possible; you are aiming to make it specific enough that the relevant faculty members and the Engineering Program Group can evaluate it. We realize that the courses offered change from year to year, and you are free to use placeholders like, Mechanical Engineering 3000-series Elective. Note that it is less acceptable to use placeholders for courses that are not regularly offered at Olin. For example, if you were to include something like Civil Engineering 3000-series Elective, that might be a problem, since neither Olin nor its partner schools offer courses in Civil Engineering. Also, if you leave too many courses unspecified, it 3 of 8

4 makes it difficult or impossible for the relevant faculty or the Engineering Program group to evaluate your course plan. We also ask you to provide a narrative description of your chosen program so that we can assess these four areas. This is especially important for interdisciplinary, multidisciplinary, or otherwise nontraditional areas. In general, the degree to which you have to document and support your course plan choices is relatively low for designated concentrations (which are designed to satisfy these four criteria), greater for self-designed concentrations, and greatest for course plans that do not have a structure similar to the designated concentrations. For a selfdesigned concentration, we encourage you to find major programs at other universities in the same or an allied field, and to model your concentration after these programs. If you do this, please submit supporting evidence along with your course plan. Finally, feel free to suggest a name for your concentration. The relevant faculty and the Engineering Program Group will evaluate the appropriateness of the name and may suggest changes. About the concentrations All Engineering students submit course plans, and all course plans are individually evaluated. However, some concentrations have been defined, in order to simplify the process of creating course plans in those fields, and they are listed in the Catalog. The four defined concentrations are Engineering: Materials Science, Engineering: Computing, Engineering: Bioengineering and Engineering: Systems. In addition, there are two provisional concentrations, Engineering: Design and Engineering: Robotics, for which requirements have been designed but which have not yet been fully formalized. Finally, the Engineering: Self option gives you maximal flexibility to design a program that is in keeping with your academic interests as well as being consistent with Olin s degree requirements. Of course, the requirements for breadth, depth, coherence, and rigor apply to every student who majors in Engineering. Defined concentrations The details below are excerpted from pp of the Course Catalog. Engineering: Bioengineering (E: Bio) Bioengineering is an interdisciplinary concentration rooted in engineering, biology, and chemistry. The E:Bio concentration prepares students to approach problems important to biology, medical research, and clinical studies; it provides some of the background required for medical school. Requirement Description or Course Name Course Number E:Bio Math Four credits of advanced Mathematics appropriate to the program of study 4 of 8

5 E:Bio Biology E:Bio Chemistry/ Materials Science E:Bio Bioengineering Four credits of advanced Biology Four credits of Chemistry, Materials Science, or Organic Chemistry in addition to the General Course Requirements 12 credits of coursework appropriate to Bioengineering SCI 1310, SCI 1410, SCI 2320 Students wishing to pursue the E: Bio concentration within the Engineering major must develop a specific program of study in consultation with bioengineering faculty. Below are some guidelines on course selection: Advanced Mathematics courses include MTH 3120 Partial Differential Equations and MTH 3170 Nonlinear Dynamics and Chaos (note that both these courses have MTH 2140 Differential Equations as a prerequisite). Advanced Biology courses include SCI 2210 Immunology and SCI 3210 Human Molecular Genetics in the Age of Genomics. Bioengineering courses include all ENGR 36xx- series courses, as well as ENGR 3810 Structural Biomaterials. E:Bio course plans may include classes at Babson, Brandeis, Wellesley, or other institutions. Note that this is not an exhaustive list of acceptable courses; other courses may be used to fulfill each of these requirements if they are part of an approved course plan. Relevant faculty for E: Bioengineering: Debbie Chachra, Alisha Sieminski, Zhenya Zastavker Engineering: Computing (E:C) The Computing concentration integrates the study of computer science and software engineering within a broad interdisciplinary context. The E:C concentration offers significant flexibility, particularly with courses taken off- campus. Requirement Description or Course Name Course Number E:C Math Discrete Mathematics MTH 2110 E:C All of: Software Design Foundations of Computer Science Software Systems 8 additional credits in computing ENGR 2510 ENGR 3520 ENGR 3525 ENGR 3520 Additional computing credits may include Olin courses such as ENGR 3540 Computational Modeling, ENGR 3410 Computer Architecture, advanced computer science courses at Babson, Brandeis, Wellesley, or study away institutions. ENGR 3220 Human Factors and Interaction Design may count toward the course requirements of E:C, but only if it is not used to satisfy the Design Depth requirement. Relevant faculty for E: Computing: Lynn Andrea Stein, Allen Downey 5 of 8

6 E: Design E: Design is an interdisciplinary concentration emphasizing synthesis, processes and methods of practice that blends engineering and AHSE. The E: Design concentration prepares students to address important societal and environmental needs through design thinking. E: Design students work closely with the design faculty at Olin to define individually customized programs of studies that meet Olin credit requirements. It remains the student s responsibility to ensure that their program of study also meets the requirements for graduate programs or professional practice. Requirement Description or Course Name Course Number E: Design - Core Eight credits of approved Advanced Design courses; Four credits may be met by Design Research E: Design - Electives Twelve credits of approved coursework appropriate to the program of study E: Design - Portfolio Two credits of Independent Study on portfolio creation (suggested) Courses used by a student to meet the Design General Requirements may not simultaneously be used to meet the E: Design Core or Elective requirements. E: Design Elective courses may be drawn from any area including AHSE, Engineering, Science or Math. Students are strongly recommended to consider one or more AHSE courses to meet this requirement. Design Research may be accomplished through an Independent- study course advised by the design faculty. Design Research counts as Advanced Design. E: Design courses may be drawn from cross registration or study away institutions with prior approval by design faculty. Note that courses at design schools will often meet the E: Design Elective requirement and not the E: Design Core requirement. All E: Design programs of study should be consistent with the student s educational goals and must contain sufficient depth, breadth, coherence, and rigor. All programs of study must receive prior approval by design faculty. All E: Design programs of study must fulfill the General Graduation Requirements. Relevant faculty for E: Design: Ben Linder, Ozgur Eris, Lynn Andrea Stein Engineering: Materials Science (E:MS) Materials Science is an inherently interdisciplinary field with a strong presence throughout most engineering and science disciplines. Olin s materials science concentration provides an integrated approach to materials, merging a variety of engineering design principles with concepts from solid- state physics and applied chemistry. Students who complete the E:MS concentration will achieve an understanding of structure- property- processing- performance relationships in materials, the ability to apply advanced scientific and engineering principles to 6 of 8

7 materials systems, and the skills to synthesize appropriate technical and contextual information to solve materials selection and design problems. Requirement Description or Course Name Course Number E:MS Math Differential Equations MTH 2140 E:MS 20 credits of engineering subjects appropriate to the program of study with a minimum of twelve credits in materials science subjects. Students wishing to pursue the Materials Science concentration within the Engineering major must develop a specific program of study in consultation with materials science and applied chemistry faculty. Such programs may emphasize different aspects of materials science, such as structural materials, solid state properties of materials, processing and manufacturing, or applied chemistry. Relevant faculty for E: Materials Science: Jonathan Stolk, Debbie Chachra Engineering: Systems (E:SYS) The Systems concentration focuses on the design of products that integrate significant technology from multiple disciplines, with a focus on products that merge ECE and ME. Such products are particularly hard to create because designers tend to have specialized, rather than broad, knowledge of disciplines. Requirement Description or Course Name Course Number E:SYS Math Differential Equations MTH 2140 E:SYS ECE: any two of: Signals and Systems Introduction to Microelectronics Circuits Software Design Computer Architecture Analog and Digital Communications ENGR 2410 ENGR 2420 ENGR 2510 ENGR 3410 ENGR 3420 ENGR 2420 E:SYS ME: any two of: Mechanics of Solids and Structures Dynamics Thermodynamics Transport Phenomena Mechanical Design ENGR 2320 ENGR 2340 ENGR 2350 ENGR 3310 ENGR 3330 E:SYS Systems ENGR 3710 Relevant faculty for E: Systems: Gill Pratt, David Barrett Self-Designed Concentrations The self-designed concentration in Engineering (E: Self) is designed to allow you the maximum amount of flexibility to create a course of study that aligns with your learning goals. Note that it is especially important that you show us exactly how the 7 of 8

8 proposed courses within your course plan fulfill the requirements for breadth, depth, coherence and rigor if you are doing an E: Self concentration. Recent named E: Self concentrations have included the following: Engineering: Cognitive Science Engineering: Biomaterials Engineering: Applied Mathematics Engineering: Chemistry Engineering: Robotics Engineering: Systems Biology Engineering: Green Engineering Relevant faculty for E: Self: Varies by discipline. Contact the Engineering Program Group if you need suggestions. Still have questions? Send an to Engineering Program Group Faculty Lynn Andrea Stein, Professor of Computer and Cognitive Science (chair) Debbie Chachra, Assistant Professor of Materials Science Allen Downey, Associate Professor of Computer Science Ozgur Eris, Assistant Professor of Design and Mechanical Engineering John Geddes, Associate Professor of Mathematics Ben Linder, Associate Professor of Design and Mechanical Engineering Alisha Sieminski, Assistant Professor of Bioengineering Mark Somerville, Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering and Physics Jon Stolk, Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science Zhenya Zastavker, Associate Professor of Physics 8 of 8