Fall 2013: EMGT 4110 Engineering Professionalism and Practice (2 Cr.)

Lecture: / 10:00 - 10:50 am (T) ENGR 290
Lab: / 10:00 – 11:50 am (Th); ENGR 290
Instructor: / Jose Carrillo, CMfgE
Office: / 182 Voss-Kovach Hall
Office Hours: / 10:00 –11:00 Monday, 2:00 – 3:00 Wednesday or by appointment
Web page: /
E-mail: /
Phone: / 218-269-6825 (Cell); 726-6161 (MIE Office); 726-8596 (MIE Fax)
Required Textbooks: / The Unwritten Laws of Engineering, W. J. King, W.J., and James G. Skakoon, ASME Press 2001.
Intellectual Property: A Guide for Engineers, ASME Press, 2001.
Memory Jogger II, Brassard, Michael and Diane Ritter, Goal/QPC 1994.
Project Management Memory Jogger, Martin, Paula and Karen Tate, Goal/QPC 1997.
Prerequisites: / BSChE or BSECE or BSIE or BSME candidate within 2 semesters of graduation; Instructor approval; no Grad School credit; credit will not be granted if credit received for IE 4155 or ME 4155

Course Objectives

When you complete this course it is hoped that you will have learned professional and ethical expectations of being an engineer, including teamwork, project management, design, decision making, and social impacts of engineering. Students should take Multidisciplinary Senior Design in their last semester, with EMgt 4110 as close to it as possible to be able to utilize the skills introduced in this class.

Program Outcomes (ABET)
The BSIE/BSEM outcomes achieved and assessed by this course as follows:

  • An ability to function on multi-disciplinary teams (d)
  • An understanding of the professional and ethical responsibilities of an industrial/mechanical engineer (f)
  • An ability to communicate effectively, including oral, written and visual forms (g)
  • A recognition of the need for, and the ability to engage in life-long learning (i)

Grading

  • Final Grade Breakdown:The overall gradeis based on two exams (100 points each), a project report covering social, environmental, political, ethical, and other contemporary issues (60 points), article presentation (40 points), team and individual assignments (5 or 10 points each), andtwo out of class requirements (25 points each). Be ready to actively participate! Late assignments will not be accepted. Exams will not be given late without prior approval.
  • Individual Project Report: This major assignment will allow you to delve deeper into the legal, ethical, social, economic, environmental, or international perspectives of engineering. You are expected to have six different articles from different sources, with one from each week from now until mid-November. For each article, you should prepare a brief synopsis, followed by your interpretation of how it impacts engineering, your career, or the intersection of engineering with society along one of the non-quantitative aspects noted above. Articles can follow a theme or they can cover a range of subjects and aspects. There is no shortage of great ideas! This assignment is detailed at the end of the syllabus.
  • Special out-of-class requirements: Part of life-long learning is essentially, “knowing that there is always more to know.” You are required to attend at leasttwoout of classevents to help expand your personal and/or professional knowledge. Following are examples of events being offered by career services this semester:
  • E-Fest: an Engineering, Computer Science and Science Career Fair
  • The Head of the Lakes Job and Internship Fair
  • Workshops covering topics such as preparing for job fairs, exploring graduate school, preparing for the GRE, and other topics related to professional development.

Other events can be attended, such as an industry-related lecture, a political event, or a section meeting for a professional organization. For each event you attend, prepare and submit a short report (less than one page) to document the program description, and your opinion of the event—i.e., what you gained from the experience, whether you learned something from it, how it might help you in your personal/professional life, how it might have been more helpful, etc. The two events you report on should be different from each other (e.g., if you go to two job fairs, you can only report on one of them; you must then choose a different type of event for your second report).

Policies

  • Attendance: As an interactive course which meets only twice a week, you will get the most out of it when you are present. Unexcused absences will result in a lowered grade. Absences can be excused in advance for items such as participation in official UMD events, ASME and IIE requirements, and family emergencies; whether an absence is excusable is at the sole discretion of the instructor.
  • Test Make-up Policy: If your schedule will not allow you to take midtermor final exams on the specified dates and times, you must make arrangement with the instructor to take your test prior to the test date. If you fail to make arrangements and take the test after the test date/time, your score for that test will be 80% of your test score.
  • Participation: We can learn a lot from other people, so please contribute! Work hard and have a good time at it! This should be a fun class where we can all learn a lot from each other as well as from the required work.
  • Work Ethic: I expect each student to read all suggested material, make a good effort at all assigned work, and be prepared for class. There will be time to work on many assignments during the lab time, but you will need to spend additional time outside of class to complete assignments, projects, readings, etc. Late work will notbe accepted.
  • Academic Integrity: Cheating on an examination will result in an “F” on the examination with a score of 0. The policy of the University and the College of Science and Engineering will be followed, so that the incident will be officially reported. If this is the second such incident for the student in the system, I will assign an “F” to the student for the course and recommend academic dismissal from the University of Minnesota.
  • Cell Phones/Email: Only in very rare circumstances is taking a cell phone call or checking email in class appropriate. Turn cell phones off—not just to silent mode. Also, turn laptops off unless we are specifically working on something in class that warrants its use.You can check your messages or text messageafter class.
  • Disabilities:It is University policy to provide, on a flexible and individualized basis, reasonable accommodations to students who have disabilities that may affect their ability to participate in course activities or to meet course requirements. Students with disabilities are encouraged to contact their instructors to discuss their individual needs for accommodations.

Tentative Schedule

Week / Tentative Topics / Lab/ Assignment Due
1 / Introduction to engineering professionalism & practice / Personal style inventory & skills assessment
2 / Résumés, cover letters, interviewing skills / Job description, résumé & cover letter
3 / Career planning, lifelong learning issues, professional development, personality styles / Guest speaker
Personality inventory paper
4 / Project management / Project analysis
5 / Project management wrap-up
Exam 1(Thursday) / Exam 1
6 / Library research skills
Communication, group dynamics, team building / Team building exercise
7 / Organizational structures, culture, conflict, politics;
Engineering design / Design activity
8 / Decision making tools / Team design presentation
9 / Problem solving / Problem solving case study
10 / Individual article presentations / Student presentations
11 / Individual article presentations / Student presentations
12 / Introduction to ethics/law/social responsibility
Thanksgiving / Thanksgiving?
13 / Introduction to the law
Intellectual property / Lawassignment
14 / Ethics
Social, safety, and environmental issues / Ethics assignment
15 / Course wrap up / Evaluation forms
Final Exam

EMGT 4110 Project Report

Background

As a soon-to-be engineer, you should be looking around the outside world to see what engineers are doing in and out of the profession, what is going on the world that impacts engineers and the profession, and what is going on that might have a profound impact on your career. You should take note of a variety of sources and do it on a regular basis; this is known as “boundary spanning.”

Requirements

  • Approach: Topics and articles should focus on ideas presented in the professionalism class; e.g., legal, ethical, social, economic, environmental, or international perspectives. You may decide that you want a theme (developments in the sporting goods industry, how engineers are involved internationally, or how ethical situations are currently transpiring, for example). Conversely, you may want to do a “sampler platter” that has articles involving many different topics (personal investing, selecting the “best car,” development of infrastructure in Afghanistan, the ethics of designing levees in New Orleans for a Class 3 hurricane, developments in engineering outside the U.S., engineers in politics, etc.). Either approach is fine, as long as you can explain why you chose it.
  • Project Pace: You need to have six (6) articles spanning a 10 week period. Do one every other week and do not wait until the end! The final report is due Thursday, November 12.
  • Article Summary: For each article, prepare a synopsis of what the article is about. Have a section on what you learned from this article and how it has broadened your understanding of engineering or the role of engineering in society. Each summary should be 1-2 pages long. Attach the article (or a photocopy) to your summary.
  • Report Summary: Once all articles have been summarized, prepare a summary of your approach to the assignment (methodology) and your findings and conclusions.
  • Sources of Information:Select a variety of sources. You are required to choose a different source for each article, and at least one (1) must come from an international source (BBC and CBC are quite good, but you might want to try something in a foreign language to get a broader perspective; alternatives might include Svenska Dagbladet from Sweden, Die Zeitfrom Germany, El Universal from Mexico, or El Mundo from Spain.)
  • Bibliography:Cite your work. Be sure to include the dates on the copies of the articles you include. In the case of printing articles off the web, include the date of your printing and the website address in the header or footer. A formal bibliography should be included in your final report.
  • Article Presentation: One particular article should be about the recent advancement in your interested industry or job field, or is related to your senior design project (for example, fuel cell strategy in energy industry). You will be presenting the contents of this particular article, and your personal views of it, for the class in mid-November.

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