First Year Engineering Series: Honors Engineering (Part 1/3)

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Here at Purdue, there are several different ways to complete the First Year Engineering (FYE) curriculum.  One of these options is Honors Engineering, an alternative to ENGR 131/132 that is open to any students who are both a member of the Honors College and admitted to the FYE program.  Students take ENGR 161/162, a 4 credit hour class which fulfills not only the ENGR 131/132 credit but also the introductory physics class PHYS 172.  This means that you are learning about how to think like an engineer while also doing physics problems.

Over the course of the semester, students work in four-person groups on a range of projects.   Past projects have included mousetrap cars, building towers with limited materials, optimizing a 3D printer, designing a hydroelectric dam, and more.  Teams also have a semester-long project centered around a robot built from LEGO Mindstorm technology, where the instructional team provides a desired task for the robot to complete.  The overall goal is broken into smaller tasks which are completed over the semester, then integrated into a final project.  Teaming and the engineering process are stressed over the duration of the two semesters, so students learn how to clearly document project progress, write technical reports, make data-driven decisions, and work together with people from diverse backgrounds.  In addition, there are more regular homework assignments and in-class activities and challenges.

As someone who went through the Honors Engineering FYE program, I can say honestly that it was a lot of work and that it could be quite challenging at times.  But by the end of the year, I had grown and learned so much about both engineering and myself; I felt ready for anything.  The skills I learned in Honors Engineering have helped me not just through the rest of my academic career at Purdue, but also in the workplace during my internships.  Some of the friends I met in Honors FYE have been some of the closest friends I have here at Purdue.  Ultimately, it’s an experience I wouldn’t trade for any of the alternatives.  If you’re looking to challenge yourself and learn a lot while you do it, Honors Engineering may just be the fit for you.

- By Cassandra McCormack 
WE Link Recruitment Project Committee -- Blog Group
IE 2019



Purdue Women in Engineering

Comments

  1. UnknownJanuary 22, 2019 at 4:32 PM

    Just so you are aware, the new honors engineering class (161/162) is now 4 credits each semester. (The previous version (141/142) was 3.5, because it incorporated CS159 rather than PHYS172.)

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