New Office Connects Project-based Learning with Career Readiness to Better Prepare Engineers

Nov. 12, 2024 - The Samueli School of Engineering has launched the Office of Experiential Learning to link its various project-based learning activities with career readiness initiatives and industry opportunities, helping propel the careers of engineering graduates.

“We are making sure we not only graduate great engineers, but great engineers who are ready for the job on day one,” explains Dean Magnus Egerstedt who envisions that the Office of Experiential Learning will be one of the reasons students seek out engineering at UCI. “This is a place where you can get an excellent engineering education and, at the same time, see your wild ideas come to life in physical and digital makerspaces with direct industry relevance.”

Fourth-year mechanical engineering major Daniela Yanira Campuzano’s UCI experience exemplifies this process. She believes she landed an internship at Volvo due to the hands-on experience she gained on the Solar Car project and as a FABWorks lab instructor combined with what she learned in her Computer-Aided Design and Design for Manufacturing and Assembly classes. “I filled out a bucket application; I thought of it as a Hail Mary,” explains Campuzano, who spent the summer interning with the project quality team at the Volvo Mack Truck assembly plant in Pennsylvania.

Campuzano said the experience was “eye opening” because she was able to translate the skills she had learned into a large scale product that is used by many. She believes it was those skills listed on her resume that got her an interview as well as helped her skip the learning curve once she began with Volvo. She performed so well in her internship that the company has kept her on part-time, remotely through the fall.

The OEL will connect many of the school’s existing programs with a few new ones all under the direction of Mark Walter, professor of teaching in mechanical and aerospace engineering. Walter will report to Nancy DaSilva, associate dean for undergraduate student affairs. Having everything under one umbrella will allow students to more easily find and tap into these resources, says Walter.

“The OEL website will allow students to become more aware of all the opportunities available to them,” said Walter. “It will also be a resource for industry representatives who will be able to engage more broadly with the school through a single touch point, whether they are seeking interns, future employees or project collaborations.”

The new office will pull together the following programs, which will be featured on the new OEL website:

Work Experiences – Engineering+ Practicum program, internships, career prep, recruiting

Projects and Partnerships – capstone/industry projects, entrepreneurial resources, student organizations, clubs and project competitions, interdisciplinary projects and professional societies

Essential Skills – professional development workshops/seminars, certificates, interdisciplinary skills, curriculum materials

Makerspaces – hands-on prototyping, generalized and specialized training, certificates, workshops, oversight and expansion of FABWorks and RapidTech

Digital Thread Lab – software and other skills workshops and training, digital transformation and digital twins, industry-academia short courses, OIT-ELP Hub

Some of the newer initiatives are the scaling up of the Essential Skills Class, which teaches a wide range of skills for success, taught by Distinguished Professor Diran Apelian. The Engineering+ Practicum program facilitates full-time employment at an engineering company for a student for academic credit while he/she remains enrolled at UCI, and the Digital Thread Lab (DTL) .

Walter says the software resources available in the DTL are crucial for today’s engineering career readiness. So much of engineering design and practice today are done digitally, he says. “Digital twins, which are virtual representations of physical systems, are transforming the way these engineered systems are conceived, designed, prototyped, operated, maintained and retired.”

UCI has the tools needed for students to develop and maintain digital threads that connect all elements of engineered systems. “It’s like a digital makerspace,” Walter said. “It gives students access to training materials and the ability to practice on their own projects.”

Walter also says the school is loaded with student-initiated and student-managed competition project teams. “Our students are so dedicated to these projects that it’s like they’re joining a sports team,” he said. “Team members support each other in the overall goal of achieving national recognition for UCI engineering.”

In creating this office, Egerstedt explained, “we will collect all of these activities under one roof and make sure the different pieces benefit each other, making the whole greater than the sum of its parts.”

– Lori Brandt