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Abstract
The undergraduate Industrial Engineering program at the University of Pittsburgh is faced not only with the challenges of meeting the latest ABET requirements, but with meeting the needs of students in the 21st century. In addition, we must adapt to the changing curriculum requirements set forth by the School of Engineering at Pitt. We are also studying how best to incorporate global and international experiences for students into the IE curriculum. In this paper, we will discuss these curriculum challenges, benchmark other IE programs to determine whether they are addressing similar issues, and describe how we intend to meet these challenges in our program.
Keywords
Undergraduate curriculum reform, education, engineering economy, globalization, international experiences
1. Introduction
Changing needs of students, the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET), and general college and university requirements demand that undergraduate engineering curriculums constantly change. The undergraduate Industrial Engineering (IE) curriculum at the University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) has evolved and adapted to the many changing needs of society and industry over its 85 year history. Currently we are faced with the challenges of meeting the latest ABET requirements as well as preparing our students to work in the flattened, global economy. Because the School of Engineering at Pitt has a common freshman year, we must also adapt our curriculum to any changes that occur in the freshman curriculum.
The school is currently considering pushing the first of a two-course calculus based physics sequence from the first to second term freshman year and including a math requirement in linear algebra in the first term. Because our students currently take a 4 credit combination of linear algebra and differential equations and in order to keep both of these subjects in the curriculum, this forces the IE program to eliminate one required course from somewhere in the sophomore, junior, or senior curriculum. In a curriculum review by the undergraduate committee for the IE department, it was determined that the material in the required "Cost Accounting" course (taught by the Business School) could be incorporated into a number of other courses including Engineering Economic Analysis, Engineering Management, Productivity Analysis, and Human Factors Engineering and thus this course could be eliminated.
In addition, we have been given a directive by our department...