Engineering Design and Communication: A Foundational Course for Freshmen

Abstract

In the past four years, Northwestern University has radically reoriented its approach to teaching communication to engineering students. Previously, the engineering school had a two-quarter communication requirement: students typically took an expository writing course and an oral course such as public speaking—often at the end of their undergraduate career. In 1994, however, the engineering school proposed a change. Prompted by new accreditation requirements from ABET (the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology) and other curricular innovations for the freshman year, the school planned to introduce a two-quarter design course for freshmen—and asked Northwestern’s Writing Program to explore the possibility of integrating the writing requirement into this course. 1 Although the initial impetus for this collaboration was simply to create “space” in the curriculum for the new course, the writing faculty saw potential in the proposal. As experienced writing teachers and communication consultants, we believed that a combined writing and engineering course could give students a deeper understanding of the role that writing plays in engineering. Such a course could also provide a strong foundation in communication for students to build upon during their remaining three years. However, we were also aware of the threats that face communication instruction in an integrated course. 2 Students and the engineering faculty were likely to see engineering design as the real focus of the course and see communication or writing as a skills set with a handmaiden’s status. It was also likely that design would receive most of the classroom time and attention. For communication to become integral and not an add-on, the course would need to be truly interdisciplinary: students should not only learn the fundamentals of design and communication, they should also see how their combined knowledge of both fields will make them better designers and better communicators. Engineering Design and Communication: A Foundational Course for Freshmen