Bridging Systems Engineering Theory and Application in Undergraduate Curricula

Abstract

Systems engineering undergraduate curricula are typically divided into foundational, methodology, and application courses. The United States Military Academy, Systems Engineering program primary application course, often referred to as a Capstone project, involves teams of students performing client-based work to solve complex real-world problems. Existing foundational and methodology courses tend to emphasize engineering management processes and operations research techniques at the expense of systems engineering technical processes. As such, students often do not have the requisite knowledge base necessary for their Capstone, reducing their self-efficiency, decision-making, overall project interest, and quality of technical artifacts. In an attempt to bridge this gap, the United States Military Academy, Systems Engineering program introduced a cornerstone course to teach system engineering design and system engineering technical processes as practiced in industry and documented in the INCOSE handbook. The course structure follows the system engineering V methodology and uses a realistic, but constrained, design project to teach and apply systems engineering skills. The introduction of this new course was found to increase the overall knowledge-base of the students entering their Capstone project, allowing them to be more self-efficient and capable of making informed engineering design decisions.