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Multidisciplinary Systems Engineering Senior Design Projects Pilot Program at Bourns College of Engineering University of California Riverside

This paper describes a pilot research program to evaluate the application of Systems Engineering in senior design projects, at the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, University of California Riverside. Integrating Systems Engineering processes into senior design projects is an effective approach to include convergence in the undergraduate engineering education curriculum. The objectives of the pilot program are to assess its design approach in terms of the implementation structure and assess students’ feedback. Students participating in the pilot program executed their projects in a way to emulate a typical Systems Engineering industrial development process. At the end of the pilot program students were asked to assess the effectiveness and the value of integrating Systems Engineering into their senior design projects’ execution. Students feedback indicated that the pilot program contributed to increased awareness and interest in Systems Engineering careers. Students said that Systems Engineering was very helpful in executing their senior design projects and gave them a valuable “System Thinking” experience of an industrial product development process. Our pilot program assessment’s results showed that students completed their projects successfully on-time and their participation in the program contributed to significant improvement in their team work, technical presentation and project management skills. Systems Engineering senior design projects align well with the ABET accreditation process. Academic institutions can use the senior project data to help them establish the required direct assessment measures of the attainment of some of the ABET student outcomes.