Business Introduction for Engineering Graduates
Ofodike Ezeykoye, Thomas Darwin and Kathy Schmidt
OVERVIEW: Engineers work in the world of business, yet often their strong technical capabilities don’t necessarily transfer into business skills and sophistication. While most graduating engineers have solid training in applying engineering principles to analysis, product design, testing and so on, they are often times inadequately prepared for the dealing with the nature, characteristics and goals of the companies and ventures that employ them. What skills do the engineers need to acquire and how does the engineering mindset influence an engineer’s business savvy? Using funding from the Ford Motor Company, Dr. "DK" Ezekoye and Dr . Steve Nichols in the mechanical engineering department, Dr. Tommy Darwin in graduate studies, and staff from the Faculty Innovation Center are exploring answers to these questions as they create curriculum for a short course on business skills. This team has collaborated with faculty in the Red McCombs School of Business in developing course and teaching modules supporting this work. This endeavor complements a larger project within the mechanical engineering department on implementing project-based learning into the curriculum. Please join us to hear about the issues relating to teaching business skills to engineers and to see examples of the planned curriculum.