Embedding Design Thinking in a Multidisciplinary Engineering Curriculum at Harvard University

Abstract

The 21st Century inherited challenges that require new methodologies and processes to solve. Engineering has a critical role to play in supporting changes and solving these problems, but our educational system needs to evolve to prepare future leaders to solve and mitigate such human problems. In particular, the educational system needs to shed disciplinary silos and allow students to learn and engage in multidisciplinary dimensions. Engineering embedded in a liberal-arts education provides unique opportunities, especially when design and innovation have been integrated into most of the engineering courses in the curriculum. The case of Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences with its forward-thinking pedagogy is presented here as an example of such a curriculum data and methodologies for assessment of the interdisciplinary courses with embedded design thinking are presented.