Does engineering major affect student perception of engineering courses in a common first-year

Abstract

In the fall of 2000, Michigan Technological University started a common first-year program for all engineering students. In conjunction with the student course evaluations, the students answered ten additional questions and reported their engineering major. These questions were used to evaluate their perception of the first-year engineering courses. The responses were used to assess the students': comfort in using the material and software taught in the courses, experiences in working on a multi-disciplinary team, perceptions of the semester design project, technical communication skills, and perception of time and effort spent on the course. This paper discusses the survey results and investigates how the data changed over time in regard to the relationship between engineering major and student perception of the first-year engineering program