2026 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Finite element analysis (FEA) is the leading method for structural simulation. Introductory FEA courses for advanced undergraduates usually focus on the numerical skills needed for developers of FEA solvers, rather than the practical skills needed by structural analysts to use FEA responsibly. Because students are much more likely to become analysts than developers, typical FEA curriculum is not aligned with industry practice. Perhaps focusing on the mathematical fundamentals is intended to give a depth of knowledge needed for professional practice—but there is not clear evidence that this depth is needed or is useful in practice. To show another perspective on how people can learn FEA, this manuscript is a review of various sources used for training engineers in industry. We consider sources including certifications, books and courses for analysts in industry, and solver manuals as evidence of what analysts should be able to do. The NAFEMS Professional Simulation Engineer Computational Structural Mechanics competencies give clear guidance on what analysts should know, they were developed by experts in industry, and they are consistent with the other sources reviewed here. Although discretization and matrix representations are indeed two key mathematical abstractions for any FEA professional, analysts use these concepts intuitively. Furthermore, FEA requires numerous practical skills that are absent from typical introductory FEA courses. Analysts scrutinize models by validating against benchmarks and using analysis checks. Students should not only learn to use validation and checks in introductory FEA courses, they should use these tools as a major means of learning FEA itself.