Engineering Education

The origins of Engineering Education at NC State began in the early 1980’s with the work for Dr. Rich Felder, Rich Felder Legacy Website. Since that time, NC State College of Engineering has had deep engagement in engineering education from the work of The Engineering Place in the precollege space to the work of our many innovative departmental faculty.

In 2018 the College of Engineering began a partnership with the College of Education to create a formal engineering education program that spans the two Colleges and leverages expertise from both to prepare the next generation of engineering faculty.

Several things make the Engineering Education program at NC State unique.

1-Engineering education has chosen NOT to become a department. Instead, it sits across two Colleges and represents a unique collaborative and multidisciplinary endeavor. The research outputs of our faculty are thus uniquely enabled to transmit directly to practice.

2-As a program, we act as a convenor and facilitator for cross-departmental and cross-College work at NC State. Whether this means funded research, unfunded research, assisting departments to handle increased teaching loads as the College of Engineering grows over the next five years, or helping departments respond agilely to challenges like the COVID-19 pandemic, the Engineering Education faculty and graduate students are uniquely positioned to bring cutting edge research and practice techniques to bear.

3-Our program is steeped in consideration for diversity, equity, and inclusion in everything that we do. Every course that we offer includes material from the best thinking available on educating whole engineers to work in a global workplace with a deeply integrated set of colleagues. And our program is preparing the educators that will bring this dream to fruition. Think and Do.

4-Our Engineering Education program prepares educators to teach undergraduate engineering classes (at community college or university), conduct industry training, work with museums to present engineering exhibits, do engineering outreach, communicate technical subjects (as in engineering sales), and other, related, activities. That is why there is a prerequisite for admission of an engineering (or related subject) degree! For those interested in teaching K-12 with a focus on STEM, check out our College of Education programs, which offer teaching certifications for K-12.

Preparing engineers for the next 50 years

Changing the paradigm of engineering education

Making engineering holistic, not just “math and science” but solving wicked problems in a multidisciplinary world

Do you have questions about engineering education at NC State? Contact our Director, Dr. Laura Bottomley, laurab@ncsu.edu.