Computer science as an integrated part of engineering education

Abstract

The Information Technology curriculum at Linkiiping University has as goal to form engineers with an integrated view of engineering. The teaching philosophy in this curriculum is Problem-Based Learning. The education in each term is organised in a number of themes where topics from different disciplines are integrated. We describe a particular term in the Information Technology curriculum as an example of the approach and the integration of computer science teaching with the teaching of other disciplines. An important advantage of the approach is that the students discover interactions between different disciplines and view the different topics as naturally connected. Also, the students seem to have a better understanding of the topics and are better motivated. Further, they obtain improved communication and co-operation skills. Another advantage is that the approach is appreciated by our female students, which has led to a higher percentage of female students in this curriculum compared to our other computer science curricula.