Redesigning an Aerospace Engineering Curriculum for the Twenty‐First Century: Results of a Survey

Abstract This paper describes the development and results of a mail survey to determine the views of industrial, government, and academic aerospace professionals on the required content of future aerospace engineering curricula and on the skills that will be needed by aerospace graduates in the early twenty‐first century. The survey is one step in an ongoing process by the Department of Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanics at the University of Cincinnati (UC) to restructure its aerospace engineering curriculum. This paper discusses the development of the survey, its results, and the preliminary conclusions that have been drawn from the results. The survey included questions on such issues as introducing design experience to the students throughout the curriculum and presenting some topics using a more interdisciplinary approach than has traditionally been followed. While the survey was constructed primarily to gather information specific to the UC curriculum redesign effort, its results are relevant to other aerospace engineering programs considering or pursuing curricular redesign.