Creating an international profile of a degree program in mechanical engineering

• At the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden (KTH), Mechanical engineering has been taught since the middle of the 19th century. Today, the degree program in Mechanical Engineering is a five year program, based on a three years BSc program and a two year MSc program. The program enrolls about 160 students every year. Starting in 2012, an international profile of the program was established. Students of the degree program choose during the first year to apply to an international profile based on one of three languages: Spanish, German or French. Acceptance criteria include good performance during the first year and language skills from prior studies. If accepted, these students are following a modified curriculum for their second and third year of studies. For the second year, language courses spans the entire academic year and constitute 25% of the entire curriculum that year. The third year includes a mandatory exchange semester abroad, with engineering studies in the local language (Spanish, German or French). To facilitate for the exchange semester, KTH has made agreements with a number of partner universities. In particular, exchange semester curricula have been established at each key partner university, so that a prior agreement of the list of courses to be taken at each university is predetermined. This paper presents results from a first run of the program with the exchange semester. For the first year, a total 24 out of 160 students were accepted to the international profile. Considerably more students applied but did not qualify. Of these 24 students, 19 choose Spanish, three choose German and two choose French. These 24 students were divided between three Spanish universities, two German universities, one French university and one Swiss.

Subject headings

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Utbildningsvetenskap (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Educational Sciences (hsv//eng)

TEKNIK OCH TEKNOLOGIER  -- Maskinteknik -- Teknisk mekanik (hsv//swe)

ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY  -- Mechanical Engineering -- Applied Mechanics (hsv//eng)

Keyword

Curricula

Engineering education

Societies and institutions

19th century

Acceptance criteria

Degree program

International profile

Language course

Local language

Royal Institute of Technology

Stockholm

Sweden

Students

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

kon (subject category)