Relating basic Courses to Engineering Problems

Engineering education has undergone major changes since the World War II when it was found that new discoveries were not made by engineers but instead by scientists. Practical training in the laboratory was once emphasized but now has shifted towards the knowledge of basic science and mathematics so that engineers are able to produce new materials, new methods and new designs from basic principles. A few decades later, a new problem exists when students and engineers do not really see the relationship between basic knowledge and real engineering problems. This paper suggests a method to overcome this problem where students, in the first semester, are given actual engineering problems and are required to solve them by applying their basic knowledge. Since they have not been exposed to engineering knowledge yet, they would then have to apply their basic knowledge to come up with a conceptual solution to a problem.