Design and Assessment of an ?Engineering? Course for Non-Majors

Abstract

As a profession, engineering is not well understood by the general public. Engineers are perceived as "geeks" who love math and who have few interests outside of technical work. In short, the engineering profession has an image problem. In order to counteract this negative stereotyping, an engineering course for non-majors was developed and offered at Michigan Tech. This course has two primary audiences: pre-service math and science teachers and business majors. The course is titled "Engineering for Non-Believers" and stresses hands-on, project-based work. This paper will describe the course content and will present assessment results from the first offering of the course.