Leveraging Curriculum to Mitigate Engineering Killer Courses

Historically Engineering curriculums drop out rates have hovered around 50% over the past 60 years despite attempts to mediate the losses. Most students don’t enjoy Calculus, Differential Equations, or Physics. Moreover, given the heavy course load at typically engineering schools it is very difficult for some students to adjust to the rigor. This paper details attempts to reinforce difficult topics like physics by having coordination between other courses in the curriculum. In particular, we couple mathematical modeling course problems with the introduction Physics course all engineers must take. The traditional mathematical modeling course includes random calculus and physics problems in the text, but these do little to help the average student struggling with physics. What we did that was different was to include specific problems from each chapter in the modeling course at the same time as they are covering the materials in Physics class. The hope is that this additional time spent on the topic will enable struggling students the additional push needed to successfully complete Physics. The process was started in the last academic year. For completeness we also included specific examples of how this was accomplished.