Peer-mentoring through the biomedical engineering design curriculum

Abstract

Biomedical Engineering (BME), has been listed as the number one best job by CNN Money in 2012-2014,1-3 best job in healthcare4 and most valuable college major by Forbes,5 among other top listings,6-10 and is a rapidly growing field. This growth is expected to be well above average at 27% from 2012-2022 as projected by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.11 As a result, BME programs are also growing with the demand. Our BME undergraduate program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, which has historically encompassed sophomores and above, has more than doubled in the last five years. This year, our college has moved to a direct department admission model adding an additional surge of freshman directly to the program (78% more students) with progression requirements versus a secondary application. In an effort to create an inclusive and welcoming environment for these 240 freshman, we have developed a mentorship program integrated with our design curriculum. The undergraduate program here was founded with design at the heart of the curriculum. We developed a rigorous six-semester, team-based design sequence for our undergraduates to solve real-world, client-based design problems that result in physical prototypes at the end of each semester. Students begin this sequence as first semester sophomores. Sophomores are teamed with juniors for their first semester of design. This breaks down class boundaries and forms mentored relationships between sophomores and juniors in the department. For the second design semester in the sequence, sophomores engage in a guided design fundamentals course12 followed by mentoring sophomores in the third semester. The fourth, fifth and sixth semesters in the design sequence involve students working with peers of the same age generally for a three-semester long project. The design sequence actively involves each student in the evolution of the design course and department through our Biomedical Student Advisory Committee (BSAC). In BSAC, one member from each of the design teams (54 teams in fall 2015) serves as a BSAC representative, thereby providing representation for all BME majors-sophomore through senior year. BSAC meets twice per month throughout each semester. Utilizing this design backbone, our department with our BSAC Chair and Biomedical Engineering Society (BMES) Student Chapter's Counseling and Resources for Undergraduates in Science and Engineering (CRUISE) Chair developed a new layer of mentoring in our curriculum. This year, we matched freshman students with BSAC members as mentees/mentors. Mentor matching was facilitated by surveys (one to the freshmen and the other to BSAC members and the upper classes). Prior to the start of the semester, students in BME Design (sophomore-senior) were made of aware of this new program and the new role of the BSAC representative. Both groups were asked to indicate their intended track within BME, future plans, and the option to list other interests. We achieved a 100% response rate from the BSAC members with an additional 13% of the remaining design students volunteering to be mentors for the 91% of the freshman interested in having a mentor. This equated to two-three mentees per mentor. Through integrating the mentorship program with the design curriculum and BSAC we are able to discuss the 'freshman experience' in our BSAC meetings, answer common questions, and effectively integrate the freshmen into upper-level, real-world design experiences that are closely advised by faculty where each team of 4-5 design students meets weekly with their faculty advisor. This new program enhances student-student interactions already established in our design curriculum such as the sophomore-junior hybrid teams and our senior student assistants who facilitate our sophomore design fundamentals course. This paper will discuss the process of developing the mentor and freshman mentee relationship, results based on the students' experiences, and the benefits of establishing a mentorship philosophy within the curriculum.