Importance of Projects in Learning

 

Accelerated technological and environmental change characterizes today’s global world.  Projects are central to companies and people managing such change.       Project based learning is the approach to education that has distinguished Cal Poly for decades as a national leader in “learn by doing” education.  With IME in a  leadership role, you’ll find:

 

• Project management courses are offered.
• Projects start at the freshman level. 
• Real-world projects are undertaken in several classes and as culminating senior projects.
• Projects are often multidisciplinary.
• Project solutions involve people skills and state-of-the art tools and technologies. 
• Projects can be for companies or community service learning projects.
• Projects enable IME students to become systems integrators of disciplines and leaders of change management.

 

 Some samples:

 1.        Service learning projects may be global or local, and for a community, for an organization, or for an individual. For an introduction to service learning and an example brick press project in Zambia,   click here.

 2.        For an annual local community project for an elderly disabled woman, click on  

PolyHouse.

 3.        Many other projects are done in individual IME courses, as senior projects, and as

sponsored projects through the Project Based Learning Institute. 

For samples, click on:  IME More Sample Projects,

 4.        Boeing is a company that hires IME students as interns and IME graduates.  Many of these students and alumni have worked on the Boeing highly innovative, new “Dreamliner” 787 now under development.  To see the presentation at the Paris Airshow on the Dreamliner 787 by Boeing VP and GM Mike Bair, click on:   Boeing 787.

 5.        At another end of the internship / career opportunity spectrum for IMEs, you should check

out “Engineering the Magic at Disney” by clicking on  Disney.