A Curriculum Framework for Undergraduate Degree in Control and Automation Engineering

Abstract

This paper presents a curriculum framework for undergraduate degree in engineering that aims strengthening elements of the professional practice which enable engineers to deal with the inherent uncertainty and complexity of the real world. In general engineering curricula focus on the theoretical knowledge and explore practical applications in an idealized way that hides problems arising in real situations. Such an approach causes several problems to the students. One of them is the difficulty to project real systems taking into account, simultaneously, the environmental, social, economic, and technical aspects. A framework is defined from the principles of "learning-by-doing", and "reflecting-on-action", whose components and organization highlight the use of real engineering problems to build both theoretical and practice knowledge, as well as intended as being essential for the professional life. For better understanding of the ideas embodied in the framework, an example of a curriculum in control and automation engineering is outlined. The proposed curriculum framework is compared to the traditional curriculum framework in order to discuss its advantages and limitations. Opened questions concerning to the curriculum implementation are commented, and the perspectives of the work are addressed as well