UCLA Engineering: UCLA Engineer Magazine

Revisions Strengthen, Broaden Undergraduate Curriculum
Beginning Fall 2006, a Revised Curriculum Will Better Prepare UCLA Engineering Graduates for a Rapidly Evolving Workplace

We wanted to provide our students with a first-class education that would not only prepare them to succeed in their chosen field, but with the breadth to add another, vital dimension to their education.”

With this goal in mind, Dean Vijay K. Dhir has initiated a complete redesign of the undergraduate curriculum at the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science. Each of the School’s seven departments has structured their programs to focus on future technologies and innovations in their respective fields, while emphasizing a solid understanding of fundamental disciplines such as math, the basic sciences, and the humanities.

The degree requirements in each major have been reduced to approximately 180 units to allow students to finish in four years. The streamlined requirements will emphasize the core concepts, while also providing an in-depth education in a student’s chosen field.

“The programs had become overgrown, stretching to four-and-one-half or five-years,” explained Dhir. “Under the new structure, we will still meet ABET requirements and the students will still receive a first-class education, but it should take them less time to graduate.”

Beginning this fall, entering undergraduates will need to complete a new three-course requirement that is designed to ensure educational breadth and to provide them with an enhanced understanding of activities in other fields. Students will be able to select from new school-wide breadth areas such as nanotechnology and technology management, as well as department-level options and areas outside engineering.

Mechanical and aerospace engineering teaching lab.

“Our faculty and the departments have been involved in the process from the beginning, and have been instrumental in shaping the new programs,” said Steve Jacobsen, associate dean for academic and student affairs. “Proposed revisions were reviewed by the faculty executive committee to ensure consistency across the School, and ensure that there are no conflicts. The School’s faculty recently voted in favor of the new requirements.”

The electrical engineering department had already begun an internal revision when Dean Dhir met with the department chairs.

“We’ve revamped the requirements and the order in which some courses are taught so that key concepts are repeated and reinforced throughout the program,” explained Ali H. Sayed, chair of the electrical engineering department. “In redesigning the program, we focused on five key elements to an improved education: breadth, depth, reinforcement, programming, and design experience.”

Electrical engineering is introducing pathways that will allow undergraduates to specialize in an area within the field, such as circuit design or communications. Upper division students in electrical engineering will take five courses in a selected pathway, including a design course and a laboratory class.

The department also is offering an electrical engineering seminar course for first and second students designed to expose them to options in the field early in their academic careers. Faculty and invited speakers will lecture on topics within the discipline and how they apply to our everyday lives to excite students about electrical engineering.

The materials science and engineering department also had begun re-examining their courses before Dhir asked them to reduce their units.

“We are changing the department’s focus to reflect the role of nanomaterials in our field,” explains materials science and engineering chair Mark Goorsky. “In each course, we’ll include information on how nanotechnology can be applied to the topic under study.”

The department is expanding its interactions with colleagues in other fields to take advantage of the breadth of materials science.

Said Goorsky, “It doesn’t serve our students to encourage them to focus narrowly on just one aspect of materials science - breadth is critical to long-term success. The revision process has given us the opportunity to refocus on what we really would like to teach to best serve our students.”

Incoming undergraduate students will take a series of general education, science, and mathematics courses that will introduce basic concepts in engineering and lay the foundation for upper division engineering classes. In redesigning the curriculum, the School worked with faculty in related disciplines to develop new courses for engineering students.

“We’ve worked with the Department of Statistics to develop a statistics class specifically for engineering students, and have had extensive consultations with the Department of Mathematics about strengthening the sequence of mathematics courses for engineers,” explained Sayed.

This multi-year effort is part of a wider effort in the School to re-examine and improve the educational experience for engineering students at UCLA. Among the new options for students are online tools to manage their classes, expanded undergraduate research opportunities, and a central source for internships.

CourseWeb - a course management system developed and in use in the School - provides undergraduate engineering students and their instructors with an easy-to-use, convenient and dynamic interface for managing all of their engineering courses online. Features such as CourseChat, offer new ways for students to interact with classmates and their instructors.

Talented engineering undergraduates at UCLA have the opportunity to conduct advanced research early in their academic careers through a number of competitive programs sponsored by departments and interdisciplinary centers in the School.

Interested students can apply to eight-to-ten week summer programs through departmental or research center programs, or with individual faculty. Open to juniors and seniors, the research programs offer UCLA faculty the means to interact more closely with exceptional undergraduate students, while affording the students with hands-on experience in research at the forefront of its field.

The School is also committed to expanding its internship program for qualified students. Education coordinator Frank Nevarez is working with the School’s corporate partners to centralize internship opportunities, and better match students with available positions that will allow them to apply what they have learned in their courses, and to gain valuable skills.

“Our primary focus,” explained Jacobsen, “is ensuring that our graduates are well-prepared for success in their careers. We take our educational responsibilities very seriously.”

- Marlys Amundson