How Senior Design Benefits Students

The Senior Design program fosters and rewards student development of highly marketable skills:

• Application of Learned Engineering Skills: Senior Design Projects allow students to sharpen learned engineering skills in a real-world environment. These include: problem analysis, design analysis, experimentation, use of leading CAD and analysis software, innovation, communication skills, and teamwork, often within an interdisciplinary team.

• Improved Marketability: By having real-world engineer responsibilities for two semesters, students improve their marketability in the job marketplace.

• Work with a Potential Employer: Throughout the two-semester experience, students are exposed to products, engineering practices and sponsor’s culture, allowing them to assess the sponsor as a prospective employer.

• Strong Communication Skills: Students present their ideas in writing and in presentations, use graphical and multimedia tools in the design process and create a design notebook.

• Active Problem Analysis: Students brainstorm, solve problems and bench mark.

• Design Analysis: Students explore processes, and conduct experimentation.

• Teamwork: This experience of collaborative problem solving, respectful interaction and coordination to achieve a shared goal allows engineers-to-be to develop important teamwork skills that are valued by employers.