Students perception of interdisciplinary Engineering Education in Europe

INTERDISCIPLINARITIES -STUDENTS PERCEPTION OF INTERDISCIPLINARY ENGINEERING EDUCATION IN EUROPE 

Engineering and Teehnology (E T) are considered as future job fields, especially in Europe, where human resources and innovative research are regarded as key factors of economical success (European Commission 2008). However, only a minority of young people plans a career in E T (Becker 2009). For instance, Germany currently lacks 36,000 engineers (Koppel 2011). 

The EU project HELENA explored students perception of interdisciplinarity in engineering study programmes. As one result it can be stated that quite many of the interviewed E T students are in favour of interdisciplinarity, although they do not always name it that way. They would like to have non-technical subjects included in their E T study programmes, especially those obviously and closely connected to future job fields, like languages, management skills and business contents. 

Finally this paper discusses how interdisciplinarity could make a successful 

Bdraud et al. (eds.), GIEE 2011 Gender and Interdisciplinary Education for Engineers, 209-221. 

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Thaler, Anita (2011) Interdisciplinarities - Students Perception of Interdisciplinary Engineering Education in Europe . In Conference Proceedings for the Gender and InterdiscipUnary Education for Engineers - GIEE 2011 HELENA International Conference, Paris, June 23-24, 2011. 

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