Interdisciplinary design projects and practical project work in the education of civil engineers

The original and primary objective for Universities is the education of students to become skilled and responsible professionals, e.g. engineers. Therefore, the balance between theoretical knowledge transfer and practical application has to be managed with care. Within this realm, the call for suitable and practice oriented education including the conveyance of knowledge from adjacent domains and interaction to these is getting louder. This paper illustrates an educational approach developed at the Chair of Timber Structures and Building Construction that tries to balance the teaching and related testing of theoretical, high-standard academic knowledge with the acquisition of important practical skills and experience. The latter is best being achieved with practical projects. These begin in the second semester with a simple structural design task, increase successively in complexity and thematic range over the years, and end with an inter-disciplinary design project in the last semester of Master`s studies.     «

The original and primary objective for Universities is the education of students to become skilled and responsible professionals, e.g. engineers. Therefore, the balance between theoretical knowledge transfer and practical application has to be managed with care. Within this realm, the call for suitable and practice oriented education including the conveyance of knowledge from adjacent domains and interaction to these is getting louder. This paper illustrates an educational approach developed at...     »