Engineer 4EX3 – Faculty of Engineering

ENGINEER 4EX3

Receive formal recognition of experiential learning conducted within the atmosphere of technically-oriented McMaster Engineering teams

Recognition for technical work

ENGINEER 4EX3 offers course credit for substantial technical contributions to engineering extracurricular teams.  As a technical elective, ENGINEER 4EX3 requires that the student’s role and work must be technical in nature, such as design-build-test work.

If your work is part of a design-build-test cycle, it likely qualifies. Students often are responsible for designing and fabricating components, writing and validating code or conducting analysis to support design decisions.

Examples of engineering technical extracurricular teams are Mini Baja, Formula Electric, NEUDOSE, EcoCar, Concrete Toboggan, but this is far from an exhaustive list.

Students inspecting Baja vehicle

Structure

The course is structured to maximize the value of the technical skills students learn during extracurricular experiences, and leverage these experiences to support future career success.

Classroom time will largely be structured in a coaching-style format, relying heavily on mentorship interactions with the instructor and teaching assistants.

Students will choose a portfolio format that aligns with their future career goals. In fact, many past students have used their portfolios in co-op interviews even before the course concludes.

This is a graded technical elective (2 terms, September-April) with 3 units towards a student’s degree. The criteria for entry is at least one year of experience with their technical team.

Resources

Explore the resources to learn more about this course or reach out to the course instructor, Dr. Elizabeth Hassan.

Contact Dr. Hassan

Testimonials

  • “4EX3 was a very enjoyable and informative technical elective! Being given the chance to increase your focus on your extracurricular teams while also building up your brand through in-class learnings and projects is a fantastic opportunity. Dr. Hassan and her TAs structured the course such that it was paced well, provided lessons that applied to the industry such as FEA analysis and consisted of 1 on 1 time with the professor or TA to ensure your portfolio was professional and thorough. Thank you for helping me and the other students develop who we are as future engineers and setting us up with the skills we’ll need going forward!”

    Angela Tollis

  • “The Experiential Engineering Design course is a highly engaging and practical way to learn how to communicate the engineering work done on extracurricular teams through a series of milestones, industry guest speakers, and a final technical portfolio. Best of all, you will receive course credit for all of the hard work put into your technical teams!”

    Adam Steacy

  • “One of the most valuable things in engineering is good documentation. Documenting your work and thinking process will not only enrich your portfolio, but also help the new team members to lead the team once you graduate.”

    Grigor Pahlevanyan and Kavish Wadehra