Undergraduate Engineering Consultants

Many traditional engineering programs offer a final-year individual research problem to introduce students to research and to assist them in developing self learning abilities. In the Civil Engineering program at the Memorial University of Newfoundland, this research has been replaced with a comprehensive design project, this being considered more appropriate, particularly for a part of Canada which is still relatively nonindustrialized. Unlike other project work, the course is operated in a fashion as close to a real life situation as possible. Students form consulting groups to tackle a problem specified by a local professional engineer who develops a normal client-consultant relationship with the group. Complete designs are required. Calculations, specifications, cost estimates, quantities, detailed plans and construction proposals must be presented for evaluation. The students are placed in a situation where they learn, not only form the teaching staff but also from engineers in industry, from each other, and by themselves.