Courses
Photo: Stefan Krause LAL
Students learn the fundamentals of oral presenting and receive one-on-one assistance with their works in progress, e.g. conference presentations, posters, preparing for quals.—all such efforts and more are covered.
The course covers general principles of effective oral communication, including delivery elements for online and in-person modalities. Workshop-style classes focus on giving conference presentations, poster presentations, qualifying exams and a variety of other oral communication projects. Goals include building confidence, clarity and connection to a variety of audiences. Personalized feedback is provided to promote continued improvement.
This freshman-level seminar satisfies the requirement for a general education course in humanistic inquiry. In this interdisciplinary course, students are provided with the tools to analyze current and emerging controversies in science, engineering, and technology. Students read primary source texts in ethical theory, science fiction, and the philosophy of technology. Acquisition of the fundamental principles in key ethical theories, such as duty ethics, utilitarianism, and virtue ethics, is a primary course objective, as is broad exposure to canonical and non-canonical readings in science fiction and speculative literature. Literary texts are drawn from a wide variety of writers, such as Mary Shelley, Aldous Huxley, Octavia Butler, Philip K. Dick, Kazuo Ishiguro, and Margaret Atwood.
Throughout the semester, students engage in critical thinking about contemporary issues in science and technology (e.g., AI, data collection, disruptive technologies, and automation). Students demonstrate learning acquisition through class discussion, oral presentations, and analytic writing assignments. Mastery of course concepts is also displayed via midterm and final examinations and collaborative group work. In a summative group project, students create utopian planned communities that seek to resolve urgent global issues. This final assignment requires students to produce a transdisciplinary, multimedia project that demonstrates achievement of course objectives.
In this course, students who have successfully completed WRIT 150 or its equivalent will identify and apply writing and speaking skills for various audiences on topics related to their professional or disciplinary interests. This version of WRIT 340 focuses on professional and disciplinary interests in engineering.
At the end of WRIT 340: Advanced Writing and Communication for Engineering, students should be able to:
- Write for academic, public, and professional audiences.
- Demonstrate research and documentation abilities at the upper-division level.
- Identify and analyze pressing ethical issues within an engineering discipline.
- Compose a professional proposal for a real-world constituent that reflects the importance of engineering solutions in society.
- Revise and edit to advanced academic and professional standards.
- Prepare and give professional oral presentations for a variety of audiences and purposes.
- Utilize visual aids in both written and oral communications.
- Articulate the impact engineering has on everyday life.
- Work collaboratively to research, write, and present information and ideas.
- Write accurate, precise technical prose.
Foundational pedagogical approaches for this course rely on writing workshops, in-class activities, and other active-learning modes of instruction to build classroom communities that foster productive dialogue and interaction.
Published on April 7th, 2017
Last updated on March 9th, 2022