2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Domestically, the gap between civil engineering graduates and projected needed civil engineers continues to grow. With recent investment in infrastructure through the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, additional civil engineers will be needed to design, build, and maintain civil infrastructure. An innovative summer course at Purdue University aims to decrease the space between the needed civil engineers and students graduating with an undergraduate civil engineering degree by helping pre-college students understand what types of problems civil engineers solve. This one-week course focuses on exposing students to both the depth and breadth of civil engineering and has explored various topics, including resiliency versus sustainability, design for tomorrow’s loads and problems, the use of novel technologies in engineering, and design for extreme (and extraterrestrial) habitats. Innovative activities include using drones for aerial photography and mapping, identifying tension and compression loads by building a 3D bridge model, tours to Purdue’s innovative research facilities, reviewing the infrastructure around them and proposing novel improvements, and participating in activities in the classroom like debates about autonomous vehicle and jigsaw activities. The authors anticipate similar programs could be instituted at universities and not-for-profits across the country to expose diverse students to civil engineering as a career and to the complex, multi-dimensional problems civil engineers get to solve every day. In addition to the means and methods of this course, this paper evaluates the course’s effectiveness by reviewing course survey data, student projects, and student outcomes. This analysis indicates that students left the course with greater knowledge of the topics discussed and pointed to various hands-on activities as their favorites. Furthermore, students self-identified as having a greater interest in civil engineering topics and engineering as a career. Reviewing the longitudinal data indicated that many students are enrolling in engineering in college, but additional time is needed to evaluate the type of engineering and post-graduation outcomes.