Teaching engineers to face the “grand challenges” of the 21st century

Our required freshman engineering course, Professional Practices, has multiple instructional objectives, including communication skills (oral and written), professional ethics, and concepts of working as a professional engineer. Instructors try to engage students to think of themselves as engineers long before they enter professional practice. Using Petroski´s The essential engineer: Why science alone will not solve our global problems (2010) as a core text, we focus on the challenges engineers face, including sustainability, risks, health, and quality of life issues. Using IEEE Spectrum for current topics, students produced brief research papers with annotated bibliographies; conducted in-depth peer reviews for each other; and presented oral information to the class. This brief paper summarizes the process of helping engineering students learn about the critical engineering challenges of today and tomorrow by reviewing and synthesizing current engineering literature, as opposed to just reading an engineering or communication textbook.