Collaborating with librarians to help first year students explore engineering disciplines and improve research & writing skills

The ease of Googling on the open web makes it increasingly unlikely that our incoming students will make the extra effort to search for good quality sources through the library website. Few first year courses focus on finding good quality information within the majors. Thus, students struggle to catch up in subsequent years when assignments require more sophisticated research. In order to get students to learn about engineering research, we introduced a two-part assignment through our required first year Fundamentals of Engineering Design (FED101) course. We created a library assignment that would help widen their knowledge and understanding about various engineering innovations, but also strengthen their research skills.