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National Survey of Student Engagement: CU-Boulder 2000

Summary of major findings - by college

In general, all students report high levels of satisfaction with their UCB education. The majority of both seniors and freshmen give high ratings to their entire educational experience, and almost all would attend UCB again if they were starting college over.

Computer/IT use is relatively high across colleges, but is also variable. While students in all colleges report high computer use, not unexpectedly, engineering and business students report the greatest use of computers and information technology in their academic work. Engineering and business seniors are especially likely to report using email to reach their instructors and they report the highest level of achievement among the colleges in developing computer/IT skills.

Emphasis placed on practical skills varies by college. Colleges with a more applied focus, such as business and engineering, place more emphasis in the curriculum on gaining work-related knowledge and skills, working on group projects, and making class presentations. Students in these programs generally spend less time developing general education and personal skills.

Most students are not getting a lot of one-on-one faculty interaction. Rates of student-faculty collaboration outside of class, either on research or some other project, are disappointingly low. Few students have had such experiences. Engineering seniors are most likely to work with faculty on research and music seniors are most likely to work with faculty on other outside-the-classroom activities, but even for these students, the rates are lower than one might hope.

NSSE 2000 Table of Contents

Last revision 04/26/02

cb - l:\ir\survey\nsse\00\report\ByCollege_summary text.doc, last updated 5/08/01