| Popis: |
As the demands of industry are evolving and new generations of students are entering universities, many engineering faculties invest time in curriculum reforms based on inspirational innovations, underpinned by engineering education research. The Faculty of Engineering Technology (FET) of KU Leuven had an additional argument to implement a huge programme reform: this faculty, hosting more than 6000 students spread across seven campuses in Flanders (Belgium), was an amalgam of different traditions and visions. Their merger into one faculty in 2013 aimed to optimize the organisation of research, education and community service. The goal of the programme reform in 2020-2021 was fourteenfold: enhancing our typical profile of (1) hands-on engineering in (2) strong interaction with the labour market and setting up (3) a technology hub with more attention to (4) multidisciplinarity, (5) professional competencies, (6) personal development & support, (7) lifelong learning and (8) challenges including (9) complex problem solving. The reform also aims to increase the (10) attractiveness and (11) social relevance of the programmes. By strengthening the internal coherence in the faculty, we can exploit the (12) multicampus narrative to offer students more choices and develop their (13) future disciplinary self, supported by (14) choice guidance. This paper describes how the curriculum was adapted in order to achieve these goals and presents the results of perception measurements organised among freshmen who followed the old programme in 2019-2020 and freshmen registered in the new programme in 2020-2021. Of foremost importance is the increased feeling that the professional competencies are essential for an engineer. |
