Utilizing Virtual Reality to Fortify Professional Skills in Engineering Education

Abstract

Several skills are needed and, most of the time, are required by the accreditation bodies as part of the preparation for entering the professional practice of engineering. Academic institutions require vision, planning, and time and budget allocation to achieve these objectives. Students are required to produce solutions to meet the specific consideration. For that reason, practical experience in engineering principles is the key to enhancing student knowledge in engineering education. Virtual reality (VR) technology can be implemented to simulate the real workplace and for educational purposes. Applying VR can encourage students to advance their understanding of the course content. And also, the student should be able to actively engage in the learning process. Implementing this technology makes it possible to improve the effectiveness of education by simplifying what is normally challenging to understand in physical classrooms. In the case of the exploitation of energy resources to differentiate the operation of offshore oil and gas rigs, VR technology can be applied to enhance the understanding and visualization of the requirement and components of the types of equipment. This paper presents real-world petroleum facilities to the classroom with the help of VR technology in the Middle East campus. As part of the innovative teaching methods in engineering courses, the main objective of applying VR is to overcome the challenge of the limited real trips, improve interest, and augment the student learning experience by applying innovative teaching methods. VR technology connects formal and informal learning processes with actual experiences. Several engineering concepts can be easily introduced thru the technology. Feedback from students shows their excitement and engagement in the learning process. Also, it supports promoting an active learning process for the new generation and engineering education.