Making space for curiosity, connection, and creating value by integrating real-world examples into engineering education

Teaching methods that emphasize theory without including practical applications can make transitioning to industry challenging for students and employers. Research and design engineering has moved to smaller, entrepreneurial companies where engineers may take on business roles, and the transition to such roles is enabled by developing an entrepreneurial mindset. The entrepreneurial mindset is a framework, focusing on the social and societal components of entrepreneurship, to stimulate curiosity, build connections, and create value (3Cs) for students. We surveyed more than 500 students at the start and end of the semester in introductory statics, dynamics, and solid mechanics courses to evaluate the degree of integration of an entrepreneurial mindset and compare their identification of real-world applications relative to applications used in course content. The survey found that students tend to agree less that the course stimulated their curiosity compared to the other Cs. Students in dynamics identified 2-4 times more real-world applications than students in statics or solid mechanics, but this did not relate to homework and test applications used. This difference may be related to other aspects of course content that were not evaluated such as online reference pages, lectures, and discussion worksheets. These study results provide valuable insights into how students’ view the entrepreneurial mindset integration depending on the structure and resources of the course.