Fostering Professional Competencies in Engineering Undergraduates with EPS@ISEP

Abstract

<jats:p>Engineering education addresses the development of professional competencies inundergraduates. In this context, the core set of professional competencies includes critical thinkingand problem solving, effective communication, collaboration and team building, and creativityand innovation—also known as the four Cs—as well as socio-professional ethics and sustainabledevelopment—referred in this paper as the two Ss. While the four Cs were identified by theassociates of the American Management Association based on the needs of the society, professionalassociations, and businesses; this paper proposes the two S extension to ensure that future engineerscontribute to the well-being of individuals and the preservation of life on Earth. It proposes atangible framework—the 4C2S—and an application method to analyse the contributions madeby engineering capstone programmes to the development of these core competencies in futureengineering professionals. The method is applied to an engineering capstone programme—theEuropean Project Semester (EPS) offered by the Instituto Superior de Engenharia do Porto (ISEP)—anda specific project case—EPS@ISEP Pet Tracker project developed in 2013, constituting, in addition,a road map for the application of the 4C2S framework to engineering capstone programmes. Theresults show that EPS@ISEP complies with the 4C2S framework.</jats:p>