ENGINEER 3CX3 provides students with the opportunity to earn course credit for valuable experiential learning which occurs while heavily involved in extracurricular clubs, teams, and groups. For ENG 3CX3, the student’s role and work must be non-technical in nature, as this course is meant to be the complementary elective version of the technical course for experiential credit offered already (Engineer 4EX3).

What is a non-technical role? This could be positions with the McMaster Engineering Society (MES), MacChangers, Engineers Without Borders, Women in Engineering, Engineering Musical, Sport Teams, etc. Basically, these are roles that do not involve the technical side of students’ engineering skillset (design, calculations, simulations, programming, etc.), but focus more on complementary skillsets (teamwork, project management, leadership, communications, etc.)

The course is structured to maximize the value of the skills students learn during extracurriculars, to develop additional relevant skills, and to better articulate the skills students possess going forward.  Classroom time will largely be structured in a workshop-style format, relying heavily on peer-to-peer interactions, and will focus on developing skills such as:

• Leadership and management,
• Self-directed learning,
• Teamwork and conflict management,
• Communication,
• Budgeting and sponsorship, etc.

Students will choose from different deliverables that align with their goals and their extracurricular duties, allowing students to track progress throughout the year, resulting in a tangible outcome demonstrating the skills that have been developed. This is a graded complementary elective (2 terms, September-April) with 3 credits towards a student’s degree.

To learn more about this course, you can read the course outline below or reach out to the course instructor, Dr. Shelir Ebrahimi.