2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Civil engineering (CE) has faced stagnant or declining enrollments in recent years, in contrast to majors such as mechanical engineering that have been increasing. This may be partially due to students not perceiving civil engineering as exciting. ASCE’s Future World Vision project (FWV) may provide a way to spark student interest in civil engineering. This paper explores the reception of first-year students enrolled in an introductory CE course to FWV. In 2022 FWV was integrated at multiple points during the semester by making small modifications in the topics and assignments that were already part of the course. The FWV video was shown on the first day of class. On the first significant homework assignment of the semester, students were given a choice of learning about civil engineering by selecting 2 of 4 readings or websites; among the 4 options, FWV was the most popular, selected by 59% of the students. Additional integration of FWV occurred in homework 3 about the design process (the floating city was the most popular scenario), homework 8 on data science, and homework 9 on creativity and innovation (again, as an option among multiple choices). The final culminating essay assignment included a prompt that mentioned FWV, although students were not required to discuss FWV. There were 32% of the students that discussed FWV as something that inspired them about civil engineering, and another 23% discussed FWV more generally. The results indicate that FWV may be effective in stimulating student interest in civil engineering, and can be integrated in simple ways that do not require major changes within a course.