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Abstract US colleges and universities, which include some of the top academic institutions in the world, confer over 130,000 engineering degrees each year. However, it is well-documented that, while these graduates possess exceptional technical talent in areas such as systems engineering, there is a wide gap between industry's expectations and new employee capabilities involving essential business skills, including team leadership, complex project management, ethics, risk-based decision-making, and communications. Moreover, advances in technology are transforming industry at a record pace, creating the need for highly-skilled technical specialists who can innovate beyond the traditional boundaries between the engineering disciplines. Additionally, the next-generation of smart products are complex systems of systems that require a new approach to development. Unfortunately, formal instruction to address these needs is lacking at the undergraduate level, leaving students inadequately prepared to meet their employer's expectations. This paper outlines an undergraduate curriculum aimed at addressing this problem through a systems engineering and leadership course sequence, which uses Systems Development Life Cycle (SDLC) principles. Students in the class are primarily leaders from three aerospace vehicle-focused student project teams, which are developing operational craft for spring competitions. The course provides just-in-time training on key systems engineering tools and process elements, as well as key leadership and business skills, as the students proceed through the SDLC sequence. The course begins with an individual Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) lab sequence, which was developed in partnership with an industry-leading engineering software and tools provider. This MBSE lab sequence is combined with teachings and team assignments revolving around other critical Systems V-based engineering tools and processes, including risk management/FMEA, project management, and Six Sigma-informed quality and test execution – all of which will inform and direct teams' design/build/test/fly projects to ensure product excellence and program health. Effective application of these tools and processes are then assessed by panels of industry and faculty judges at discrete team Preliminary Design Review (PDR), Critical Design Review (CDR), and Flight Readiness Review (FRR) events. Course teachings are also supplemented by a number of distinguished industry practitioners, who connect the teachings to real-life scenarios and situations to highlight their relevance. To evaluate the impact of this course, we will examine student survey responses as well as quantitative scoring and comments by industry/faculty judges during design reviews. In addition, we will use feedback from experts in the aerospace field and the performance of the student teams in their respective competitions at the end of each semester. These factors will help to assess the effectiveness of the teachings and enable continuous improvements to the curriculum. The paper also outlines future plans for scaling the curriculum to a full hands-on, lab-based experiential learning platform. It also captures plans for future expansion to other engineering disciplines at the undergraduate level, plus more expert applications at the graduate level.
Halow et al. (Tue,) studied this question.