(560a) Reorganizing the Junior and Senior Years At UConn

In this presentation we discuss the reorganization of the junior and senior year curriculum at the University of Connecticut to meet a number of educational goals. First off, we discuss the reorganization of the laboratory classes from a monolithic senior year course to two junior-level labs tied closely to core courses, and a senior laboratory course focused on multiple larger experiments that tie in with a theme in chemical engineering (for example, energy, bio, water, etc.). Next, we discuss the reorganization of the transport sequence from a two-semester sequence to a three semester sequence, with the first semester in the senior year being a Unit Operations and Introduction to Design course. This allows us to have a full year for senior design, allowing expanded projects, more discussion of process safety in design, and a full semester of instruction in process simulation using modern chemical engineerng tools. Lastly, we discuss the addition of a chemical engineering analysis course to the core curriculum, bolstering students' mathematical preparation and giving them the chemical engineering context for many of the techniques that they have started to learn in their other math courses. All in all, through modification of existing courses, introduction of new ones, and elimination of extraneous ones, we have been able to shift the chemical engineering towards a more experiential, design focused track without increasing the total number of credit hours.