Effects of Multi-Disciplinary and Intercultural Engineering Education in Automotive Engineering/Service at CDHAW of Tongji University

Abstract

This paper examined the requirements of economy, industry and society for the education of engineers in the field of automotive engineering/service (AES). It introduced a novel engineering education model and investigates the effects at its implementation in a Sino-German educational research project in Tongji University. From three main requirements for engineers in automotive industry, it discussed the orientation and features of AES which focus on application-oriented, multi-disciplinary, and intercultural education. The objective of AES is to educate competent engineers meeting industrial requirements and acquiring a double degree as Bachelor of Science at CDHAW and as Bachelor of Engineering at the German partner universities of applied sciences. To guarantee the quality of bachelor-level engineers on knowledge, know-how, engineering competence and soft skills, this education model integrated a useful operation conception from curriculum design, bilingualism, multi-disciplinary and application-oriented education, education structure, and other resources of teaching and combined them into a system. Out of the education model we derived the effects for students, university staffs, and related companies, and the challenges from the implementation at the Sino-German College of Applied Sciences (Chinesisch-Deutsche Hochschule für Angewandte Wissenschaften, for short CDHAW in German language) of Tongji University. The education model and its positive effects can be successfully used for reference to international engineering education reform and practice.