An evolving freshman engineering design program-the NJIT experience

At New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT), USA, there has been a great effort in curriculum redesign. Many institutions of higher learning have responded to curriculum reform encouraged by the initiatives created by the National Science Foundation (NSF) coalitions. In addition, the need for curriculum reform has been expressed by industrial colleagues, entering students, administrators and Faculty. Here, the authors describe how, in response to these inputs, a disciplinary introductory freshman engineering design oriented program was initiated at NJIT in 1992 to introduce entering freshman to "real engineering" up front.