Engineering is about meeting real-life challenges, and engineering education can benefit from the same approach. Students in Penn State’s Computer Science and Engineering program decided to take their education into their own hands, and now they’re getting course credit for it.
Engineering is an applied discipline. Students need a solid foundation before they can be fully effective, but what they often want and need is a challenge where the answer is not in the back of the book. Seeking this sort of hands-on engineering, two juniors, Dylan Fetch and Joshua Crafts, have developed a course where they are working for a client, not for a professor.
According to a Penn State news article, the course involves developing computer software for a current application. The students first select a client based on the proposed project for which the software is needed. Yes, you read that right. It is a competitive process to get these students working on software for your project.
In the pilot semester, the eleven enrolled students are working with, Matt Ferrari, an assistant professor of biology at Penn State. The project involves mapping annual measles epidemics in order to develop new immunization protocols.
The current data set is contained within spreadsheets with tabulated data from each country and for each year. This layout allows for tracking trends, but it is not easy to quickly compare various countries or years. As Fetch describes, "Instead we're going to have all of the information in a database and world map so that if you click on a country, you can bring up graphs of all of the data you want."
The computer science class started as a student club. STATEWARE, which stands for Students Taking Advantage of Their Education While Accelerating Research Efforts, was seen as being on shaky ground as a club. This is because as students get swamped with classes, club activities drop down the priority list. Most classes do not have the time to take on large projects, so it was hoped that by combining course credit and group project development more students would participate. And ultimately benefit.
The students’ idea was supported by faculty members Steven Shaffer and Stephen Fast. They provided valuable connections with researchers and industry and helped guide the process. Additional support comes from corporate sponsors IBM, Lutron Electronics and Microsoft, as well as from Penn State's student chapter of the Association of Computing Machinery (ACM).
Projects in the 1.5 credit course are expected to extend into the next semester, and students are encouraged to enroll multiple times. The final version will be used by the World Health Organization to apprise vaccine policy. The course shows that motivated students with supportive faculty can develop innovative approaches to learning that produce lasting effects.
Image: Pennsylvania State University