Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
I'm Euan Bain. I'm the program leader for Chemical Engineering in the School of Engineering
and I teach subjects like Chemical Reaction Engineering; I'm involved in Chemical Engineering
Design and I teach 3rd year Unit Operations and Control.
I think it would be fair to say, across the board in Engineering, Academic Excellence
has to take priority, possibly extending into not only academic excellence, but certainly
technical excellence. In terms of demonstrating academic excellence in university, I think
it's very important to remember that getting it right the first time is very important.
We certainly don't want to be designing and building bridges which then come down. In
my own profession, in terms of Chemical Engineering, we certainly don't want to be having major
accidents in the chemical processing industries, like what we've seen in Macondo, Piper Alpha,
Flixborough, these things. You know, we must get it right first time, there has to be an
emphasis on that. If you break apart the graduate attributes,
I think you'll definitely find that all accredited Engineering programs and do develop probably
all of them at some point within the degree. That's, I think, that's absolutely certain.
When we move beyond technical excellence or academic excellence, the next attributes which
are very important for engineers is certainly communication. The ability to communicate
in a written manner, orally, through posters, through written reports, being able to interact
with other people, being able to work in teams; those are of critical importance to your development,
certainly as an engineer. And even if you make the decision not to be an engineer, they're
going to be very important for you in any other walk of life.
Level 4 students all undertake an individual project for 45 credits. That project really
gives the student the opportunity to demonstrate academic excellence; demonstrate engagement;
demonstrate project management; the ability to work effectively; and possibly the ability
-- certainly to work individually -- but, you may find yourself working on a live research
project, and so therefore working as part of a team.
The graduate attributes themselves are a vehicle for students to be able to take ownership
and perhaps give them some structure towards personal development. So, taking a real responsibility
for what they're doing, the decisions they're making as they go through their degree program,
and why they're making those decisions. To go on and develop yourself to the best of
your ability and make a positive contribution to yourself as you go on through your university
degree.