Educating engineers for the future
Early experiential education is what makes Waterloo Engineering unique. Here in the Pearl Sullivan Engineering IDEAs Clinic, students of all skill levels are given real-world problems inside the classroom, providing additional practical skills and engineering judgment outside of students co-op terms. Experiences such as Engineering Design Days, Teamwork Training Modules, and stand-alone activities are integrated into the curriculum providing an opportunity for students to demonstrate their creativity, while experiencing context for what is learned in the classroom.
From first year to fourth year, the IDEAs Clinic is partnering with instructors from across Engineering to create a hands-on journey through increasingly complex activities and workshops. Engineering Design Days and Teamwork Training modules will prepare students from first, second, and third year for their fourth year design project experiences. Fourth Year Capstone projects showing the best analysis may apply for the ANSYS Design Analysis Competition. Finally, the ambitious, hands-on elective courses supported by the Ideas Clinic will challenge and enliven students as they move into the next phases of their professional lives.
The IDEAs Clinic provides a safe, nurturing environment for students to learn about real-world engineering applications. It is a means to a more holistic curriculum: the IDEAs Clinic facilitates the bridging of different courses in the curriculum, showing a more complete picture of Engineering to all students of the faculty.
Activities not only teach students engineering skills, but also teamwork, safety, sustainability, economics, collaboration, and conflict-resolution. Overall, the IDEAs Clinic is a new and engaging way of educating upcoming engineers.