2026 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

The demands of the modern, globally competitive landscape require contemporary engineering graduates to be equipped with skills beyond traditional technical competence. Engineers must not only solve complex technical problems but also identify emergent market opportunities, create sustainable stakeholder value, and drive organizational or technological innovation. This critical synthesis of technical and business acumen is encapsulated by the Entrepreneurial Mindset (EM), which is broadly defined by the three core competencies of curiosity (exploring problems and possibilities), making connections (integrating diverse knowledge and resources), and creating value (delivering solutions that meet defined needs). To cultivate this essential skill set, this paper argues that moving beyond isolated elective courses toward a systematic, embedded, and curricular-wide integration is essential.

We present the comprehensive design, theoretical rationale, and structural scaffolding of a required EM vertical thread implemented within the core undergraduate engineering curriculum. The design strategy centers on a deliberate multi-course sequence spanning all four years of the undergraduate degree: Intro to engineering, research methods, Design Courses, engineering economics, and senior design projects. This longitudinal intervention ensures continuous exposure and reinforcement of specific EM competencies at developmentally appropriate stages.

The structural scaffolding rigorously progresses through the innovation cycle: students move from initial problem-scoping, stakeholder analysis, and opportunity identification in Intro to engineering, to deep inquiry, conducting customer discovery, and rigorous validation of technical hypotheses in research methods. This is followed by iterative technical development, rapid prototyping, and failure analysis in the Design Courses. Subsequently, they advance to economic feasibility assessment, business model canvas generation, and comprehensive market validation in engineering economics, culminating in holistic value creation, team formation, and final technical-business alignment during the senior design projects. This paper details the specific pedagogical interventions, including the use of inverted classroom methods and structured ideation tools, and maps these activities directly to achieving core ABET student outcomes and KEEN learning objectives. The curriculum design serves as a comprehensive, replicable model for institutions committed to embedding innovation literacy and the entrepreneurial mindset as foundational, developmentally scaffolded learning outcomes.