Ieee’s Rwep Program To Recruit And Retain First Year Students In Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering And Computer Science

U.S. enrollment in undergraduate programs in electrical engineering (EE), computer engineering (CE) and computer science (CS) has declined significantly in recent years. Women remain under-represented in undergraduate EE, CE and CS programs—recently, they comprise an even smaller proportion of the overall shrinking enrollment. EE, CE and CS are the three primary fields of interest to the IEEE. IEEE is an international organization with nearly 370,000 members world-wide. In 2007, IEEE launched the Real World Engineering Projects (RWEP) program aimed at recruiting and retaining undergraduate students in EE, CE and CS programs. The RWEP program is a competitive, peer-reviewed award process that solicits hands-on, teambased, first-year projects that focus on real-world problems whose solutions benefit society. IEEE disseminates these projects to faculty worldwide for their use in the classroom. These projects make EE/CE/CS significantly more exciting and relevant to first year students and illustrate how the work of professionals impacts society. IEEE expects that the RWEP program will help realize increased student enrollment and retention in EE/CE/CS undergraduate programs—with an even greater impact on students from under-represented groups. Preliminary results support this hypothesis. Background and Motivation U.S. enrollment in undergraduate programs in electrical engineering (EE), computer engineering (CE) and computer science (CS) has exhibited a significant decline in recent years. From 2001 to 2006, enrollment in undergraduate CS programs dropped 20% from 33,695 to 27,062 full-time students. From 2001 to 2006, enrollment in undergraduate EE and CE programs dropped 27% from 102,943 to 75,302 full-time students. EE, CE and CS are the three primary fields of interest to the IEEE. IEEE is an international organization with nearly 370,000 members worldwide. In addition to the overall declining enrollment, women remain significantly under-represented in undergraduate EE, CE and CS programs. Moreover, their small representation has recently eroded further. In 2006, women earned only: 14.2% of the EE bachelor’s degrees (down from 14.8% in 2002); 11.2% of the CE bachelor’s degrees (down from 12.8% in 2002); and, 13.7% of the CS bachelor’s degrees (down from 17.9% in 2002) . In 2007, IEEE launched a $400,000 program aimed at recruiting and retaining undergraduate students in EE, CE and CS programs. The IEEE Real World Engineering Projects (RWEP) program is a competitive, peer-reviewed award process that solicits hands-on, team-based, firstyear projects that focus on real-world problems whose solutions benefit society. For example, a potential signal processing project might have the students implement arrhythmia detection algorithms and discover how computational complexity affects the real-time constraint that is P ge 13683.2 critical to an implantable device’s ability to save lives. IEEE makes the selected projects available to the world’s EE/CE/CS faculty through the IEEE Education web portal. Faculty’s use of these projects makes EE/CE/CS significantly more relevant to first year students and illustrates how the work of professional engineers and computer scientists impacts society. The projects allow students to discover the importance of contemporary EE/CE/CS problems and elicit excitement about creative solutions. There are several novel aspects of the RWEP program’s approach. ‚ The projects address real, contemporary engineering challenges; consequently, they are more meaningful than many first year projects that address only “toy” problems. ‚ The projects demonstrate “how” and “why” the technical methods work and are not mere “recipes.” ‚ Underlying complex principles and concepts are made tractable by the experts who develop the projects; moreover, engineering solution strategies and trade-offs are illustrated through the projects. ‚ Each project explicitly describes how the problem and its solution impact society; this is an important motivator for students—particularly women students. This societal benefit dimension portrays EE/CE/CS in a way that is usually considered to apply only to disciplines like biomedical engineering and environmental engineering. ‚ The projects promote a more interactive, engaged approach to the first year education experience. Students work together on teams to solve the problems presented; they also interact with the faculty as they design and implement their solutions. This fosters a sense of community that is not only more enjoyable, but has also been shown to be of importance to student retention and learning. RWEP is a unique program that leverages IEEE’s ability to persuade faculty to engage in creating and implementing a more inspiring approach to early engineering education. IEEE expects that this approach will benefit students, faculty and the EE/CE/CS professions worldwide.