Engineering Education Meets the Liberal Arts: Organising an Interdisciplinary Education for New Engineers
摘要
In this chapter, it is argued that in the modern world, engineering education needs a stronger focus on interdisciplinarity and, consequently, team-based integrative problem-solving competencies. This is due to the inherent complexity of the sociotechnical challenges the world currently faces. Throughout this chapter, the design of a three-year bachelor’s programme—Technology, Liberal Arts, and Sciences or ATLAS—characterised by its emphasis on interdisciplinarity is described. The embedding of the programme’s core values (interdisciplinarity, self-directed learning, personal development, community, and trailblazing) in a programme that adopts problem-based learning and self-directed learning and is founded on a liberal arts philosophy, is also discussed. The chapter introduces a framework used for designing semesters that integrates disciplinary knowledge and academic skills, based on the programme’s final learning objectives of developing students’ competencies in the disciplinary lenses for understanding, processes of creation (research and design), communication and collaboration, and academic approach and attitude. The chapter further explores the programme’s educational goals, the curricular structure, the operationalisation of the self-directed learning concept, and the design of the semester projects.