Engineering in the modern world: A freshman course in engineering

The authors describe a course designed for engineering undergraduates in their first year that also enrolls a significant number of liberal arts students. The course explains the great engineering events that have transformed American life over the last two centuries: the steamboat and the textile mill, the railroad, the telegraph, and the steel industry, the rise of the electrical, oil, automobile, and aircraft industries, the restructuring of regions such as Metropolitan New York, the Tennessee Valley, and the Colorado River, and finally the growth of information technologies in the last half century. Typically about 70 students enroll in the course and the small classes have about 12 students each. The students do a series of calculations in civil, mechanical, electrical, chemical, and aeronautical engineering that do not require calculus. They write a 3000-word term paper on an engineering object or system, and they take a final examination on the lectures, readings, and calculations. The course has been given five times, and it receives high student ratings.<>