Assessing Student Preparation for Senior Capstone Design Projects

Virtually every engineering program has a senior design project. Ideally, the students’ path to this capstone course prepares them for what will be required. At the University of Arkansas, we have a two semester Creative Project sequence. To assess their preparedness, all Creative Project students were surveyed. One of the findings is that the majority of students said that they were either only exposed to design/hands-on projects in their senior year, or in just a handful of previous classes. This is in contrast to their perception upon entering the university where they thought most classes would involve such design work. In addition, a majority of students said they only became aware of what would be required in this Creative Project course either in the course itself, or the year before. Lastly, a majority responded that they would have greatly benefited from involvement with this course while they were freshman.