A record summer for engineering study abroad!

This past summer forty Tickle College of Engineering students took University of Tennessee engineering courses as part of four faculty-led programs. The faculty–led programs are designed to combine technical courses with international experiences in a way that provides course credit while minimizing schedule concerns for engineering students. This year students participated in:

1. Engineering In London The College’s largest program combined two London programs from the summer of 2012 and offered three courses with students taking 2 out of 3 offerings in a five-week format. Courses were COSC 494Development of Computing, taught by Dr. Michael Berry, professor in the Min H. Kao Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, ME 331Thermodynamics, taught by Dr. Roger Parsons, the Director of Engineering Outreach and an electrical engineering course, ECE 301 Electromechanical Components, taught by Dr. Paul Crilly, associate professor in the EECS department. This program featured multiple field trips to visit industrial revolution and development of computing sites to provide course context and enrichment opportunities.
2. A second trip offered again in 2013 was entitled Water Resources and Climate Change in the European Alps, led by Dr. Glenn Tootle of the Civil Engineering department (now at the University of Alabama) and based in Innsbruck, Austria. This course offered technical elective credit that was applicable to most engineering curricula and was a joint trip with the University of Alabama.
3. A new course for 2013 was ME 472, Sustainable Energy Engineering, taught by Dr. Madhu Madhukar of the MABE department and was based in Dublin, Ireland. Ireland produces a significant portion of its energy from wind turbines and this class visited wind farms as part of the curriculum.
4. Also new for 2013 was a trip to Prague, Czech Republic, sponsored by the Nuclear Engineering Department and led by Dr. Wes Hines, Head of the Nuclear Engineering Department. Students received credit for a junior level nuclear engineering laboratory course for participating in a reactor physics training course associated with the Czech Technical University of Prague. The students visited several nuclear related sites in the region.

For the summer of 2014, all of these programs are scheduled to continue, with one more to be added, an Industrial Engineering technical elective titled Global Perspectives on Lean, Reliability, and Maintainability, led by Dr. Klaus Blache, Director of the Maintenance and Reliability Center and based in Munich, Germany.

 

Information on these and other programs will be available to students at the Study Abroad Fair, September 25, at the Student Center ballroom.

Another initiative that resulted in a significant engineering study abroad experience in 2013 was UT TCE/Mechanical Engineering Department’s partnership with the Polytechnico de Torino, Turin, Italy. Six mechanical engineering seniors spent their final semester in spring, 2013 at PdT. Turin is the home of FIAT, and PdT has a significant reputation in automotive engineering and design.