Online University Education for Engineering Students During Pandemic

With the nation and the world embracing “Stay in Place”, online tertiary education has become the norm in most countries. The United States universities have been offering online university education for some time now, but with this vast increase in use has created some new problems for students and teachers.

The engineering students may be more experienced with the digital world and can adopt this direction, compared to disciplines in the medical and other hands on fields, but the major increase in use of home internet has created problems for many students.

“It’s definitely a huge sea change for us in academia,” said Prof. Donna Riley, the Kamyar Haghighi Head of the School of Engineering Education at Purdue University, one of the country’s largest engineering schools.

“E-learning can be face-to-face learning, she argued, as contradictory as that might seem. If professors ask for feedback on what works, “if you take a minute, students will tell you.”

There are myriad practical concerns as well. Some students will say they have an internet connection and a working computer, but that might not always be the case. In some regions of the world or the U.S., the connection will be poor. With about 25% international students in Purdue engineering programs, some might have no network alternative. Even the neighborhood Starbucks with free Wi-Fi is likely to be closed. “We’ll find out if the internet is good enough,” she told Fierce Electronics.

Platforms like Webex and Zoom have become the new classrooms. Issues with working on projects that involve physical materials or even ones that require small teams working together create hurdles of their own. But the fact that the current generation at universities are experienced internet users lessens the learning curve.

“We know how students learn and we’ll do our level best to make sure students meet those learning outcomes. There is a distancing that happens with online, but you can overcome that if you are intentionally designing it to connect students to one another. They are going to be in teams and with faculty and teaching assistants,” Riley noted.

While the distractions from home can impact online learning versus the in classroom experience, this form of teaching offers the same in-depth content and can be adapted to at home learning. In many cases the lectures can be viewed at the convenience of the student’s time. But it still requires the application given to on campus classes.

When online education started there were people who did not think it would work. As Engineering.com noted in 2015, “Many online education naysayers argue that the impersonal nature of the Internet limits interaction and therefore education. This may have been the case at one time, but it isn’t anymore.”

While the current situation has created a huge demand on university resources and a rapid adoption to this massive increase in online learning, the fact that it has been in place for some time gives the system the framework to use.

Professors will be able to do their lectures and can use a calendar system to coordinate one on one sessions. Fortunately many students do a combination of online and on campus learning already.

This form of education requires more attention and structure from students and staff. In the case of engineering, certain disciplines would be easier than others. US News explained last year “What to Expect in an Online Engineering Master’s Degree” that can also now be good advice to any engineering course.

As we do not know how long this pandemic may last, here is a good list of below is a list of reviews of the better programs currently offered for students looking to enter the field in the fall. Hopefully we will have open university campuses by then but just in case here are some articles to review.