2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

When engineers become working professionals, especially if they become team leads, managers, or entrepreneurs, they must juggle knowledge of and tasks associated with team citizenship and leadership, ethics, strategy, operations, finance, and projects. The “complete engineer” is one who has the technical knowledge along with the interpersonal and professional skills that support workplace success. Both the academy and industry agree that students need opportunities to develop a breadth of technical and non-technical workplace skills. One opportunity to learn and apply “real-world” skills is through project-based learning opportunities, such as senior design. In support of the valuable knowledge and skills needed in today’s demanding and complex work environment, this qualitative study explores whether and how students apply what they learn in the experiential and highly-participative Engineering Management and Leadership course to their senior design projects and which course aspects best enable design team success. This study employed online and in-person focus groups with current undergraduate (3rd and 4th year) students during the Fall and Winter of 2022. Findings from this study offer student perceptions and experiences diagnosing team challenges, identifying possible solutions to team challenges, recognizing and responding to conflict productively, influencing others without authority, writing collaboratively, analyzing beliefs or biases that interfere with productivity and/or collaboration, teaching and coaching peers, recognizing ethical implications of a decision, considering the needs of disparate stakeholders, making evaluations for financial investments/decisions, and using project management techniques. Drawing from these findings, the Engineering Management and Leadership course might serve as a model for other universities seeking to provide their graduating seniors with the interpersonal and professional skills needed to succeed in their earliest careers.