Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology 2000

ABET 2000 Committee

Professor Howard Hu, hhu@seas.upenn.edu
Professor Robert L. Jeffcoat, rlj@seas.upenn.edu
Professor Mark Yim, yim@seas.upenn.edu

Mission Statement

The MEAM program provides our students with an educational experience that combines breadth and depth, to allow them to work, develop, and lead in mechanical engineering practice and research or continue their studies in the best graduate schools – within either traditional engineering and research environments, or in non-traditional multidisciplinary environments at the interface between engineering and a diversity of fields, including medicine, business, and law.

Program Educational Objectives

The Mechanical Engineering program at Penn is designed to provide graduates a broad and rigorous education empowering them with the tools to work on technologies of today and preparing them to master technologies of tomorrow. Students will develop literacy and competency in utilizing mathematical, scientific and engineering techniques commonly used by mechanical engineers, while being able to apply these techniques to create useful engineering artifacts or products. The ultimate goal of the program is to prepare our graduates to be intellectual leaders in academia, industry, government and society.

Specifically, the Mechanical Engineering Program Objectives are:

1. Fundamental - To educate our students in the fundamental principles of mathematics, science, and engineering, and to train them in modern problem solving tools used commonly by mechanical engineers;

2. Application - To train students to apply their basic knowledge of mechanical engineering principles and techniques to analyze, synthesize and design engineering systems;

3. Breadth - To maintain a flexible curriculum providing students a broad education and skill set that allows them to think critically and contribute to areas well outside traditional boundaries of mechanical engineering;

4. Professionalism - To prepare students to be engineering professionals by training them to communicate and function effectively as members and leaders of multidisciplinary teams, and to expose them to the broad range of social, ethical and environmental issues that may be relevant to mechanical engineeriing; and

5. Research - To support and prepare interested students in the pursuit of advanced degrees, by providing opportunities to participate in research activites and mentoring interactions with faculty and graduates.

Assessment/Evaluation of MEAM Educational Objectives:

Assessment of Program Educational Objectives takes multiple forms, and is accomplished primarily through a bi-annual Alumni Survey, an annual Alumni/Industry Focus Group, and through informal discussions with employers during the School's annual Career Day.

Input gathered from the above assessment processes will be compiled, analyzed, and evaluated by the MEAM ABET Committee. The Committee will then propose action items for full MEAM faculty discussion and approval. The approved action items will be implemented thereafter. New courses and substantive programmatic revisions are also discussed and required appovals will be sought through the SEAS Undergraduate Affairs Committee (UAC). School-wide matter that affect all programs are discussed in SEAS UAC, enabling other programs the opportunity to provide input and to assess impact of changes on their own programs.

Program Outcomes

Graduating students must demonstrate the following,

(a)   An abililty to apply knowlege of mathematics, science, and engineering.

(b)   An ability to design and conduct experiments, as well as to analyze and interpret data.

(c)   An ability to design both thermal and mechanical systems, components, or processes to meet desired needs.

(d)   An ability to function on multi-disciplinary teams.

(e)   An ability to identify, formulate, model, and solve engineering problems.

(f)    An understanding of professional and ethical responsibility.

(g)   An ability to communicate effectively both verbally and in writing.

(h)   A broad education necessary to understand the impact of engineering solutions in a global and societal context.

(i)    A recognition of the need for, and an ability to engage in life-long learning.
(j)    A knowledge of contemporary issues.

(k)   An ability to use the techniques, skills, and modern engineering tools necessary for engineering practice and research.

(l)    A knowledge of chemistry and calculus-based physics with depth in physics.

(m)  The ability to apply advanced mathematics through multivariate calculus and differential equations.

(n)   Familiarity with statistics and linear algebra.

(o)   Proficiency with computation and some of the important engineering software.