Possible (but certainly not mandatory) Outcome Topics

written by Professor Nick Kildahl

Listed below are the 11 ABET outcomes that you are asked to address in your writing assignments. To provide some guidance as to what type of academic experience might constitute an encounter with a particular outcome, or what might constitute a suitable artifact to present in support of your experience with an outcome, we have given after each outcome a set of items, experiences, etc. relevant to the outcome. These are by no means all-inclusive; they are meant only to suggest the type of thing that you might cite in support of your experience of an outcome.

Engineering Programs must demonstrate that their graduates have:

1. An ability to apply knowledge of mathematics, science, and engineering.
   Here you might describe:
   
   • Your understanding of the solutions of second order differential equations encountered in your study of quantum physics or chemistry.
   • Your use of differential calculus to minimize or maximize the value of a physical quantity such as the energy of a system, the stress on a beam.
   • The application of your understanding of solid state structures in solving a problem in a mechanical engineering course or project.
   • Your ability to use scientific process or ways of thinking in your approach to problems.
   • Your ability to create an engineering design to solve a problem with physical, chemical, or biological components.
   • Your ability to write clear and grammatically correct documents resulting from your experience in a humanities course.
2. An ability to design and conduct experiments, as well as to analyze and interpret data.
   Relevant to this outcome are your experiences in:
   • Laboratory courses.
   • MQPs, PQPs, or course projects involving data collection.
   • Social science courses, where statistical analysis is crucial.
   • Your choice to learn the use of a spreadsheet software package during a course, project, or other activity requiring the manipulation of numbers and visual presentation of results.
   • Experiments designed and conducted of your own volition.
3. An ability to design a system, component, or process to meet desired needs.
   Relevant to this outcome are your experiences in:
   • Your freshman orientation project.
   • Engineering design courses.
   • Laboratory courses in which you have participated in a novel or unusual solution to an experimental problem.
   • Laboratory courses or experience in which you have designed an experimental procedure and carried it out.
   • Committee work in which you participated in developing and/or streamlining a procedure to accomplish a needed task.
   • Work on a set crew for a theatre production.
4. An ability to function on multidisciplinary teams.
   Relevant to this outcome are your experiences:
   • On campus committees.
   • In project groups, either in courses, your IQP, or your MQP.
   • In student groups formed as part of courses taught via cooperative learning.
   • In extracurricular activities (such as theatre productions in which you participate, membership on varsity or intramural sports teams, or membership in vocal groups or church groups).
   • Your design experience during freshman orientation.
5. An ability to identify, formulate, and solve (engineering) problems.
   Relevant to this outcome are experiences such as:
   • The design project that you carried out during new student orientation.
   • A design project carried out in an engineering course or MQP.
   • An improved chemical synthesis for a particular target substance.
   • A proof of a mathematical theorem accomplished in a course or project.
   • A software package that accomplishes a desired end.
   • A website that accomplishes a teaching, organizational, presentation, or dissemination goal.
   • Your development of a Sufficiency theme.
   
   A good example here is the recent invention by an MIT graduate student of an instrument for more effectively carrying out non-invasive surgery. He identified a problem in the medical profession (less than optimal equipment for an extremely important application); conceived an instrument design; and constructed an instrument that functions superbly and will probably revolutionize noninvasive surgery.
6. An understanding of professional and ethical responsibility.
   Relevant to this outcome, you might describe in your own words your excercise of professional responsibility with respect to:
   • Regularly attending class.
   • Completing all homework assignments for a course, whether or not these are collected and graded.
   • Preparing fully for a class, a meeting, a group project session.
   • Informing people in advance if you are unable to make a scheduled appointment.
   • Conducting yourself in a mature, safe, and appropriate manner in any campus setting.
   
   With respect to ethical aspects, you might discuss:
   • An incident in which you were tempted to cheat, or did cheat, on an assignment or test assessment.
   • A situation in which you or a member of a group involving you habitually functioned below expectation and profited undeservedly from the other members' efforts.
   • Plagiarism.
   • Dry-labbing.
   • Disruptive or abusive classroom behavior.
   • "Manufacturing" data.
   • Your experiences in an ethics course.
7. An ability to communicate effectively.
   Relevant to this outcome are experiences and/or artifacts that might include:
   • A writing, speaking, or drama course.
   • A creative or technical literary piece written by you.
   • A description of an oral presentation.
   • A description of your part in successful group interactions during a group project or cooperative learning based course.
   • A useful website that you have created.
   • A written description of your role in a successful committee function.
   • A description of the successes and failures during a PLA experience, whether you were the PLA or a member of a group supervised by a PLA.
   • An IQP or an MQP report.
   • A set of meeting minutes written by you.
8. The broad education necessary to understand the impact of engineering solutions in a global/societal context.
   Relevant to this outcome might be:
   • Your IQP experience, especially if at an off-campus center.
   • Your experience in a social science course.
   • Your experience in a humanities course, in particular a course in history of science and technology.
   • A written summary of your understanding of environmental or social consequences of an existing or proposed engineering solution (e.g., the storing of nuclear wastes in Carlsbad Caverns, the reduction of local pollution by increasing the height of exhaust stacks in coal burning power plants, or the potential global warming problem resulting from continued burning of hydrocarbon fuels).
9. A recognition of the need for and an ability to engage in life-long learning.
   Relevant to this outcome are experiences of self-motivated and self-driven learning, such as:
   • Going beyond the minimum requirements of a course or project assignment OF YOUR OWN VOLITION because of an inherent interest or curiousity.
   • Learning to use a software package and applying it broadly.
   • Reading widely in the technical and lay literature of your field.
   • Attending a professional meeting and pursuing (by reading, discussion, or application) something you learned there.
   • Pursuing answers to your own questions, by whatever means.
   • Resolving knowledge conflicts within your own mind.
   • Questioning the explanations of fellow students, professors, and experts if they do not work for you.
   • Joining a professional society of your major area and attending an occasional local, regional, or national meeting.
   • Taking a course that is not specifically recommended by your major department but that you know will benefit you professionally (e.g., a course in writing, speaking, theater, computer science, materialsengineering, geology, and so on).
   • Any experience in which you push yourself beyond the boundaries of your "comfort zone."
10. A knowledge of contemporary issues.
    Relevant to this outcome are:
    • Reading and keeping a file of newspaper or magazine articles discussing societal issues to which science and/or engineering are relevant. For example, the nuclear power debate, the problem of nuclear waste disposal, the problem of hazardous waste cleanup and disposal, global warming, or ozone depletion.
    • Classroom discussions of contemporary issues/problems as related to course material.
    • Your IQP experience.
    • Awareness of what is going on at the "frontiers" of your discipline.
11. An ability to use the techniques, skills, and modern (engineering) tools necessary for (engineering) practice.
    Relevant to this outcome are your skills in:
    • Writing.
    • Speaking.
    • Interpersonal interactions.
    • Persuasion.
    • Functioning in a group effort.
    • Decision-making.
    • Trouble-shooting.
    • Experience with state of the art statistical, mathematical, representational, and design software packages.
    • Literature searching and library use.
    • Use of web resources to gather information.
    • Use of instrumentation/apparatus appropriate to your field.
    • Laboratory procedures and manipulations.

This site created by Kevin Pease (Portfolio Project Peer Learning Assistant) Last Modified: 2/25/97