Undergraduate MSE Program Goals and Outcomes
The Materials field encompasses the science and engineering of almost everything we see and touch, generating a marvelous array of career opportunities and tracks for Materials graduates. Indeed, fewer than one in ten practicing engineers and scientists working in the Materials field has a formal Materials education, diffusing clear definition of the field. In fact, Materials Science and Engineering (MSE) is a discipline in its own right, the study of structure-properties-processing interactions and their relation to performance across all classes of materials. Other disciplines provide only fragments of this approach; their full integration defines MSE. The School of Materials Engineering at Purdue provides just such a general MSE undergraduate program.
A. The School will:
- Provide an education that optimally serves the School's constituencies: the students and their parents, the MSE faculty, other programs at Purdue, alumni, employers, graduate programs, and the State of Indiana.
- Delineate and promote MSE as a distinct discipline while providing insight into ways MSE and related disciplines complement each other in practice.
- Encourage and promote active participation in groups and societies that enhance the profession, the university, the community, and humanity.
- Provide information on the full range of Materials career tracks and help students discover and develop both potential career interests and personal interests in nontechnical areas.
- Provide a focus on scientific principles and engineering practices that cut across the encompass all classes of materials, through a full integration of the (general MSE) structure-properties-processing approach.
- Develop a balanced perspective between development of new materials and the application (specification) of existing materials.
- Provide opportunities for concentrated studies in Materials sub-disciplines or related specialties.
- Provide unique opportunities for concentration in a general materials processing stem.
B. The students will:
- Develop the problem-solving skills necessary to define individual components of engineering problems, and the design skills necessary to integrate those components into system solutions.
- Become expert in the fundamental concepts of the science and engineering of materials.
- Become familiar with the range and use of technical, professional, and strategic informational resources available outside of the classroom.
- Develop engineering judgment, particularly the ability to critically assess data, statistics, and other inputs, as well as the capabilities and limitations of computational modeling, software tools, and analytical math analysis.
- Become competent in experimental research and development technique, both in individual and team settings.
- Develop a high level of skill in professional communication, both written and oral.
- Be aware of major current challenges facing engineers, their historical context, and potentials for future developments and ramifications.
- Develop the habits of a life-long learner: acquiring, testing and utilizing new information in every aspect of life.