An Assessment of Desired "Business Knowledge Attributes" for Engineering Technology Graduates

Journal of Engineering Technology, Fall 2006 by Fisher, Kenneth J, Lobaugh, Michael, Parente, Diane H

* Elective Course: Small Products Realization

An elective muliiilisciplinary course lor business and engineering students has been implemented to address business anil engineering interactions during the product-realization cycle. Course objectives address communications and teamwork, project management, ethics, and financial issues. Sustaining the cross-disciplinary effort within a small college setting has been difficult.14 As structured, the Small Products Realization course commands a heavy faculty commitment from faculty of both schools and has been offered only as a technical elective with selective enrollment.

* Business Minors

Since it is permissible for students within SEET majors to direct their choice of electives to include business courses, the School of Business developed business minors in technical sales and in operations anil supply chain management as an option for seeT engineering and engineering technology students. Course within the minors provide instruction in the areas of business ethics, legal issues, finance, accounting, management, and organizational behavior as listed in Table I under the skills needed at the thrcc-tolive-year level.Thus, students taking the minor have the opportunity to accelerate their skills development in these areas and are better prepared to pursue business-related post-graduate study. Depending upon the discipline, up to nine of the twenty credits needed by the minors can be taken within the major.

Acknowledgement

A GE Fund - Learning Fxcellence Grant supported this study. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the GE Foundation.

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