Fusing introduction to engineering and intercultural communication and its effect on the customer awareness aspect of the entrepreneurial mindset

Abstract

This Work In Progress paper will describe an effort to emphasize the customer awareness aspect of the entrepreneurial mindset in the first year curriculum, based on a novel approach that is being implemented at Arizona State University called ProMod, which stands for Project-Based Modular Learning. Based on this approach, the two first year courses Introduction to Engineering and Intercultural Communication have been made cohered with each other using a single Clean Water design project. As students design for a customer that they are not familiar with, they explored their cultural background, their value, etc. based on what learned in the intercultural communication class and used the insights gained in the design process, especially the problem definition stage to ensure that they were on the right path to create added value for their customer. Therefore, it emphasizes the customer awareness aspect, an important part of the entrepreneurial mindset. In this paper, the design and implementation of this ProMod project will be described, and results from preliminary assessment will be discussed.