Progressive Integration of Design Process into Civil Engineering Curriculum

The design process has been successfully infused in the civil engineering curriculum at an undergraduate institution through progressive and consistent integration of key design principles throughout the four years of education. This has been accomplished without adding new courses to the curriculum. Students are introduced to a problem-solving framework in the freshman year that is used as the basis of further instruction in the design process in subsequent courses. Several upper-level courses were structured to include project-enhanced, project-based learning and cooperative learning that promote learning at higher levels. Assessment data indicate that students are making progressive improvement in problem-solving abilities, performing better on senior capstone design projects, and show better preparedness to make the transition to practice engineering after graduation.