The curriculum goals of the unit, as currently stated in the catalog or other departmental documents, are as follows: 

“The educational objective of the undergraduate program in Mechanical Engineering is to prepare graduates so that, within three years of graduation, they will have successfully established themselves in professional careers and/or obtained a graduate degree, and will have begun to generate new knowledge or exercise leadership in their positions to the benefit of society.

Each graduate of the mechanical engineering program is expected to:

  • apply knowledge of mathematics, science, and engineering;
  • identify, formulate, and solve engineering problems;
  • use computers to solve engineering problems;
  • use modern instrumentation;
  • design and conduct experiments, including the use of probability and statistics;
  • analyze and interpret data;
  • design systems, components, or processes to meet desired needs;
  • understand the processes used to manufacture products;
  • understand contemporary issues in mechanical engineering;
  • make effective oral presentations;
  • write effectively;
  • function effectively on multi-disciplinary teams;
  • understand professional and ethical responsibility;
  • understand the impact of engineering in a global and societal context; and
  • engage in lifelong learning.”

Are these goals still accurate/current or do they need to be revised? What is the unit’s schedule for reviewing the curriculum goals?

Objectives and Outcomes Updates

The above program outcomes are in the process of being updated to reflect recommendations from the most recent ABET review.  They will also be updated in the next edition of the course catalog (2014-2015). Specifically, what had been outcomes 7 and 8 will be combined into one more general outcome (#7) that will read “design systems, components, or processes to meet desired needs.”  Although we feel that our curriculum provides a solid grounding in both thermal and mechanical systems, students’ advanced design experience may emphasize one area to a greater extent than the other contingent on the specifics of their capstone project.

As defined in our ABET 2011 self-study report, the basic process for evaluation of the program objectives and outcomes is that they are periodically reviewed by each of the department’s constituent groups, with results synthesized into final form by the faculty.  Relevant constituent groups for this purpose include students, alumni, employers and the Department’s Industry Advisory Council. Since the program objectives and outcomes represent the basic direction and goals of the department, which are not subject to rapid change, the period of the objectives review cycle has been chosen to coincide with the ABET accreditation cycle.

During the last review period, how has the department/program assessed how well it has accomplished its curriculum goals?

Assessment Data Summary

The central mechanism for our continuous improvement cycle is an extensive review process, with six required courses coming under task force evaluation each year. These reviews provide a wealth of information for instructor use and occasionally indicate that curricular modifications are needed. They also provide documentation of our processes, including indicating areas where existing documentation is in need of revision.  The results are presented in a table below.

Three additional data sources that relate directly to the department’s objectives and outcomes are the Alumni Survey, the Senior Survey, and the FE Exam.  Supplementary information has also been obtained from a number of College and campus surveys, including those focused on orientation, first-year students, post-graduation, internships, and employers.  These surveys provide general information on student attitudes and experiences.  The ME Undergraduate Committee, and the Assessment and Curriculum Subcommittee in particular, continually reviews data from these assessments and implements changes accordingly.

Task Force Review Data

Course Summary and Changes
MCEN 2024 Material Science

Overall, students felt that the topics listed in the learning objectives were covered. However, they did not feel confident in the information that they learned from the course. When they were informed that the covered material forms the foundation for subsequent classes, including component and mechanical design, they indicated that they would appreciate additional review sessions prior to enrolling in future courses.

Additional feedback focused on a lack of instructor accessibility during Spring 2010, as well as on frustration with what was perceived as a lack of general dedication to the course.  An example was provided of an exam that included five problems taken directly from the homework, which served to decrease students’ motivation to push themselves to learn additional material.  As a counterpoint, the TAs for the course received excellent feedback with regards to their level of preparation and accessibility. 

Follow-Up: Instructor specific issues will be remedied by a change in teaching assignments.  Other issues were likely also related to teaching style, as they tie back to motivation and overall comfort level with regards to the material covered.

MCEN 2063 Mechanics of Solids

Overall, students felt that this course was very well taught. Constructive feedback included a request that the instructor post a full version of the class notes online.  The instructor for the course indicated that he had intentionally posted partial notes as a means of engaging students and encouraging them to attend class.  Although no clear conclusion was reached, the feedback collected will provide options for future instructors to consider in planning their course structure. 

Negative student feedback focused on a lack of preparation by TAs prior to their office hours.  Students reported that the TAs frequently had not looked at the week’s homework prior to their office hours, which they found frustrating given that the TA position is a paid role within the Department.  Task force facilitators noted that this issue is not isolated to MCEN 2063 and that other courses across the department are similarly impacted.

An additional student concern related to MCEN 2063 focused on the instructor’s method for encouraging student engagement, which involved calling students up to the board to complete a problem if they were disruptive or did not appear to be paying attention.  The students in the course indicated that they did not find the strategy effective, which the instructor agreed to take into consideration for future semesters.

Follow-Up: Future instructors will have a clear view of the pros and cons of providing students with a complete set of lecture notes, as well as a better understanding of the expectations that should be set for TAs. The instructor from this semester also has feedback to take into consideration for future courses with regards to the perceived/actual efficacy of various strategies for promoting student engagement.

MCEN 3012 Thermodynamics

Students expressed an interest in supplementing a traditional lecture format with additional demos and field trips.  Recommendations included lab and industry visits, with a specific request for a power plant tour. 

An additional topic of review focused on whether the course should include one or two lectures focused on energy, with the understanding that the instructor’s relative emphasis on that area may vary between semesters.  If it is covered during a specific semester, the task force recommended including a related FCQ question so that the outcome could be more effectively evaluated. 

Reviewers noted that the current semester’s FCQ ratings related to “contemporary issues” were quite high and that future instructors might benefit from the current instructor’s insights in that area. 

Follow-Up: Student interest in demos and tours will be referred to future instructors for them to follow-up with as they choose. Refer future instructors to Professor Norris for insights on covering material related to contemporary issues.  

MCEN 3025 Component Design

Feedback focused on a lack of adequate time to complete the assigned projects, as well as a preference for longer class sessions and a reformatting of the time frame associated with project completion.  Students noted that they felt rushed to complete their projects, even though the instructor had already extended their due date. Students also noted that they frequently ran out of time to work on in-class projects, with the transmission lab mentioned as a specific example.  When asked to suggest strategies for reformatting the course to allow more time for projects, students indicated that some of the introductory material on solid mechanics could be eliminated from the course and that evening exams would give them both more test time and more class time. 

Additional recommendations included recruiting upper division students to serve as design team coaches, bringing in an industry speaker to talk about the importance of component selection, and introducing computer simulations as a course component.  There was some discussion about whether it would be helpful for the department to provide budgets for projects, although it was also argued that the majority of the required supplies could be obtained through Durning or the ITLL.

On a broader curriculum related note, the students in this course put substantial emphasis on the difficulty associated with balancing all of their junior year coursework.  The Undergraduate Committee is aware of that concern and is actively seeking out strategies to better distribute the more work intensive courses in our curriculum throughout students’ sophomore, junior, and senior years. 

Follow-Up: Lecture moved from MWF to TuTh schedule, with the lab time remaining on Fridays. 

MCEN 3030 Computational Methods

Positive feedback was provided with regards to instructor accessibility, the decision to locate office hours in the computer lab, and the quality of a guest lecture presented by Professor Desjardins. Students also specifically noted that they appreciated a climate model that was used in class to illustrate the impact of round off error. 

There were mixed feelings about the effectiveness of the course’s TAs, with students noting that the TAs often got stuck helping students who only had a few lines of code to write.  No definite conclusions were reached as to strategies for addressing that issue.

Specific suggestions related to course material and delivery included making the online MATLAB tutorials a required course component, focusing the homework on more simplified fundamental concepts, including pseudo code on exams, emphasizing MATLAB’s built in functions for lab assignments, and moving the exams to an evening format.  There was also some concern that reading quizzes may have been more difficult than the instructor had originally anticipated and that the course textbook might not be the best choice to cover all of the class’s learning objectives (e.g., partial differential equations).

Follow-Up: Instructor worked with students to obtain additional feedback regarding strategies for increasing TAs’ effectiveness in providing assistance during office hours.

MCEN 4047 ME Senior Lab

Students indicated that the primary benefit of this course is the ‘self-designed’ aspect, which was only an emphasis for one out of the three included lab experiences.  Suggested reformatting one of the other two to also emphasize the design component.  Also discussed renaming course something similar to “Introduction to Research”, in order to more effectively describe the actual material covered.  Task force indicated that a name change would also need to be accompanied by an increase in the time allotted to experimental design concepts. 

A substantial amount of time was devoted to discussing the specifics associated with students’ poster presentations.  Students noted that they appreciated that they were provided with funding resources to help cover the costs of their experiments, but indicated that they would have appreciated also receiving some funding to cover printing costs.  A recommendation was made with regards to using projectors to display the posters, with a counterargument suggesting that projected images wouldn’t have a high enough resolution to effectively showcase the students’ work.

Some suggestions were noted with regards to course organization, as well as with the organization related skills taught by the course.  It was recommended that additional TAs be recruited from the undergraduate student population, so that office hours could be offered prior to each homework due date.  In addition, students would have appreciated more information and a better structuring of information on the CU Learn website.  The task force’s review also indicated that a classroom was only needed for the first week of the course, which made it inefficient to reserve a room for the full semester. 

Follow-Up: Course moved to lab setting, with a separate lecture space reserved for the first week. Student poster printing is now paid for from student fees budget. Additionally, the ITL now has a high-definition projector in the break-out rooms. Experimentation with projection-only presentations is underway.

ECEN 3010 Circuits

Course appears to have done a good job of covering key concepts, although there were some areas for potential improvement related to troubleshooting skills and complex numbers.  The task force – in collaboration with the instructor - recommended using a black box experiment to address the troubleshooting issue and posting calculator instruction links on CU Learn to account for the deficit related to complex numbers.  It was also noted that the lab sections could benefit from additional TA support, with the goal of having two full TAs per section.

Follow-Up: Instructor continues to request additional TA support from EE department with varying results (some semesters with great support, some with less). We will continue to try to request consistent strong support. The need for every semester offering will increase as enrollments rise. 

GEEN 1300 Introduction to Engineering Computing

The task force noted substantial concerns related to the size of this course, with issues related to both Matlab license availability and seating challenges.  Pros and cons associated with the 8am lecture time were also discussed, particularly with regards to its impact on attendance and the difficulties associated with requesting a move to a different time.

Students recommended included topical titles on PowerPoint slides, in addition to slide titles.  They also requested that labs be formatted in a way that allowed the students to complete them even if one concept is missing, which led to a task force recommendation that additional support be provided in the form of homework or pre-labs.  It was also noted that TAs found it difficult to support the lab sections, since it was not possible for them to be familiar with each individual project.

Learning objectives and course catalog description were in need of revision, although FCQ appeared to be up to date.  CMU version of course description still included Calc 3 topics, which are not a current component.

Follow-Up: Both lecture and lab enrollment caps have been significantly reduced.  Class was relocated from DUAN to MATH, which is a more optimal space.  Still scheduled for 8am, likely due to constraints related to room reservations.  Learning objectives, catalog description, and CMU course information have been revised.

 

Senior Survey Data

Graduating seniors were surveyed with respect to the program outcomes. Completion of the survey is a graduation requirement, which helped the Department achieve a response rate of 68% for December 2010 and 83% for May 2011. As in previous years, students rated their abilities in certain areas highly while noting that other areas could potentially benefit from increased attention.  A five point scale was used, with the following descriptions provided: 1-not at all, 2- not very, 3-moderately, 4-very, 5-extremely competent.

The following abilities were ranked over 4.0:

Understanding of professional and ethical responsibility 4.33
Ability to function effectively on multi-disciplinary teams 4.31
Ability to engage in life-long learning 4.29
Ability to make effective oral presentations 4.27
Ability to apply knowledge of mathmatics, science, and engineering 4.11
Ability to identify, formulate, and solve engineering problems 4.03
Ability to design mechanical systems, components, or processes 4.05

Overall, students rated themselves as moderately competent or better in all program outcomes.

Categories that fell between 3.0 and 4.0 included:

Ability to write effectively 4.00
Ability to analyze and interpret data 3.90
Understand the processes used to manufacture products 3.85
Ability to use modern instrumentation 3.83
Understanding of engineering in a global and societal context 3.76
Ability to use computers to solve engineering problems 3.68
Ability to design and conduct experiments 3.62
Ability to design thermal systems, components, or processes 3.28
Understand contemporary issues in mechanical engineering 3.26

The lowest rated outcome was ‘understanding contemporary issues in mechanical engineering,’ which received a 3.26. Professors have been emphasizing this more over the past few years, but students don’t seem to understand that the topics that are introduced at the beginning of lecture are ‘contemporary issues.’ We will work to make this connection more obvious.

The survey also encouraged students to comment on a wide range of topics related to their time at CU. When asked to describe both the highlights and worst experiences, students often cited individual faculty members. Generally the students listed instructional faculty (non-tenure track) as the highlights of their program, along with the departmental staff advisor. In general, our graduating seniors are well satisfied with our program. In response to the question “overall, did your program of study at CU-Boulder meet your educational goals”, fully 96% responded ‘yes’. Of the total respondents, 94% would recommend the ME program to a friend.

FE Exam Data

The FE exam (taken by graduating seniors) shows our students continuing to perform at levels slightly below the national average, with an overall pass rate of 74.2% for April 2011. Over the years of increasing class sizes, performance on the FE dropped, but rebounded slightly in AY 09-10, possibly due to the enrollment restrictions implemented in 2007. Strategies implemented on the Department level to improve FE scores include offering optional review sessions focused on key subject areas and encouraging students to make use of study materials provided by NCEES.  It is also worth noting that the Department requires that students register for the FE in order to graduate, but does not require that they pass the test.  Given the timing of the exam in relation to graduation, that technicality may lead to decreased motivation to effectively prepare for the exam. Because students must take the exam, however, we hope they will direct some attention to preparation. It is also worth noting that our curriculum does not include Engineering Economics, a required section on the FE exam. Not surprisingly, our students fall below the national average in this area.

Testing Date Apr. '08 Oct. '08 Apr. '09 Oct. '09 Apr. '10 Oct. '10 Apr. '11
% Passing - National 84.9 81.6 82.5 76.4 83.6 82.3 81.7
% Passing -
CU Boulder
78.5 75.0 74.2 76.7 80.7 78.0 74.2

Post-Graduation Survey

Alumni from the College of Engineering and Applied Science who graduated in May, August or December of 2010 were invited to complete an online survey focused on their current professional activities.  Of the 41 ME graduates who responded, 83% had accepted an offer of employment within six months of their graduation.  Alumni reported finding their positions through an internship or co-op (18%), job listing (18%), networking with family or friends (18%), and through Career Services (18%).  Job satisfaction was high (3.7/5) and most respondents indicated that their position was related to their major (3.7/5). Of the total respondents, 12% were currently attending graduate school and an additional 42% were considering pursuing an advanced degree.  Average salaries for students who graduated from the ME Department were higher than the national average ($50,550) and were on par with the average for CU’s College of Engineering ($54,149).  Survey respondents reported an average salary of $54,507 for all jobs and $54,842 for positions specifically related to engineering.

Alumni Survey Data

Graduates from the Class of 2008 were surveyed in Summer 2011 with respect to the program objectives. We received a total of 57 responses (including incomplete surveys) from the 158 graduates contacted, for a 36% overall response rate.  Of the respondents, 88% had successfully established themselves in a professional career (responding ‘moderate’ or higher), 88% felt they had exercised leadership, 33% were in progress towards or had obtained a graduate degree, 38% had begun to generate new knowledge, and 81% felt they were benefiting society. This data indicates that our program objectives are being achieved to a significant degree. Suggested changes to the curriculum included more open-ended or project type courses, more MCEN undergraduate community events, and a stronger connection between MCEN curriculum and industry. 

What has the department/program concluded with respect to the outcomes of its undergraduate curriculum?

In general our program is performing well, particularly in the face of continued high enrollments. An enrollment control strategy was implemented four years ago and class sizes are coming down from a high of 170 to the target size of 110, as the smaller cohorts move through the program. Summary assessment data, such as the senior survey and FE exam, are expected to improve after AY 2010-2011, as the final large cohort graduates. However, the College has mandated an end to enrollment limitations effective in Fall 2011. We expect significant and immediate growth in ME enrollment, with cohort sizes surpassing those prior to enrollment limits being enacted. The College has promised significant additional resources to deal with the growth, should it occur as projected.

Reported strengths for our program include high job placement rates, ratings consistently above 3.0 in terms of the Department’s success in imparting desired program outcomes, and an ongoing emphasis on evaluating and improving the curriculum.  In conjunction with the Student Affairs and Professionalism subcommittee, our branch of ASME has also stepped in to address some of the noted shortcomings in terms of community building opportunities and FE preparation.

What changes in the curriculum or in major requirements have occurred as a result of your assessment of your undergraduate program?

As mentioned in last year’s report and in the MCEN 3025 section of our Task Force Review, we have been investigating alleviation plans to reduce the load in the junior year of the standard curriculum. We have decided to move the Dynamics course from the junior year to the sophomore year to create more balance. The course number will change from MCEN 3043 to MCEN 2043. In Spring 2012, we will offer both 2043 and 3043 to allow for the transition, and keep both cohorts on track to graduate.

As a result of the end of the enrollment limitation policies in CEAS, and in the face of rising MCEN and EVEN enrollments (environmental engineering majors are required to take several core mechanical engineering courses, hence our thermodynamics 1 and 2, fluids and heat transfer courses are large and growing), the College has approved modest increases in instructional support for the department. These are expected to increase as enrollment increases. We are using these resources to split several of our core courses, focusing on the ones where EVEN enrollment is high. In the 2010-2011 academic year, we split thermodynamics 1 and 2, fluids and data analysis into two concurrent sections. As we split more courses, we will offer them each semester, fall and spring, rather than concurrent sections in one semester. This will allow more curricular flexibility for our students, and may encourage student participation in study abroad and co-op programs, and internships.

Additional changes resulting from our continuous improvement process have been noted above (pgs 2-6), with regards to the scheduling and format for specific courses.  Examples include moving MCEN 4047 from a MWF to a TuTh format to better accommodate a lab based course structure, as well as substantially reducing the class sizes for GEEN 1300.  We have also noted consistent feedback with regards to the impact of TAs on the quality of students’ learning experience and have endeavored to both hire high quality TAs and provide instructors with the tools necessary to train them effectively. The Undergraduate and Graduate committees will continue to develop programs together to ensure more effective TAs are available.

We are continuing our efforts in community building and professionalism, both of which were areas noted in the post-graduation and alumni surveys. The Professionalism Institute is running well and requires students to attend one professionalism seminar each semester. Topics include professional ethics, dealing with cultural differences and diversity, civic engagement, leadership, and innovation. In addition, most of our faculty members have adopted our Common Syllabus for required undergraduate courses.  Assessment of these strategies is ongoing. The Common Syllabus and Professionalism Institute have attracted notice from other departments, and are being considered for wider application on campus.