DAMASCENO, E. C., CAURIN, G. A. P., DANTAS, F. A. S., KACHAN, G. C., MORILLA, J. C., NAKANISHI, T., NITTA. M. & PEREIRA, W. N. A.
Universidade de Mogi das Cruzes, Av. Dr. Candido Xavier de Almeida Souza, 200, 08780-911 - Mogi das Cruzes, SP., Brazil, ecdamas@ccet.umc.br, http://www.umc.br
Abstract: UMC - Universidade de Mogi das Cruzes (The University of Mogi das Cruzes), named after the city where it is located, is one of the largest private universities in Brazil. The city of Mogi das Cruzes has approximately 350,000 inhabitants and is located near the city Sao Paulo, in the southeast of Brazil. The university has been in operation for about 26 years.
More than 14,900 undergraduates attend UMC courses. Nearly 1,800 of them are engineering students (1,200 sophomore and junior and 600 freshmen) distributed among the Common Cycle -the first two years- and Civil, Electrical/Telecommunications, Chemical and Mechanics/Automation Engineering courses. In a near future (year 2001) applications will be accepted to Environmental, Food and Industrial (Production) engineering courses and careers. All engineering courses are conducted and managed by CCET - Centro de Ciencias Exatas e Tecnologia.
A large curriculum reform is taking place during the last years in order to improve the engineering education. This reform lies on a proposal of a brand new engineering course, a complete revision of the basic and professional courses, the establishment of a Common Cycle to be developed within the first and second years by all engineering students, the integration of the curricula, an introduction of modern learning and teaching techniques, new engineering careers and the encouragement of entrepreneurship among the students and future engineers.
Keywords: education, engineering, integration, methods
UMC is supported by OMEC - Organizacao Mogiana de Ensino e Cultura Sociedade Civil Limitada. The university has been in operation since 1973 and during the last years it has improved its position due to the modernization and the high quality of its courses. At the present time it is one of the most important private universities in Brazil. Table 1 shows some figures on UMC and CCET.
Table 1. Figures on UMC and CCET (May, 1999)
|
UMC undergraduates |
14,960 |
|
UMC academic staff |
794 |
|
UMC administrative staff |
411 |
|
UMC courses |
55 |
|
CCET undergraduates |
3,431 |
|
Undergraduates in engineering |
1,876 |
|
CCET academic staff |
162 |
UMC's infrastructure is composed by a 245,000 square meters area campus located in Mogi das Cruzes (figure 1). A new campus is being projected to be build in the city of Sao Paulo.
The engineering courses are conduced by CCET - Centro de Ciencias Exatas e de Tecnologia. There are also two other centers, one for Human Sciences and another for Biomedical Sciences. The administrative building and a stadium complete the UMC's installations.
Figure 1. General view of UMC Campus
Despite the existence of daily courses, a large number of students attend to evening courses, due to social conditions. Since Mogi das Cruzes is located in an industrial area, many students work during the day in the industries and offices in the region and come to the university to study in the evening.
Before 1999, according to the traditional system, an engineering candidate would apply directly for Civil, Mechanics, Chemistry or Electrical engineering. And so his/her career should be elected before he/she even began the engineering course. The total lecture load was over 4,000 hours to be concluded in 6 years.
Since 1994 a committee has been working on the modernization of the engineering education and on the design of a new engineering course, based on the market needs in engineering and on the tremendous technological evolution observed through the years. Nowadays a more generalist formation is recommended.
In 1998 the new design of the engineering course was approved to be first implemented with the freshmen engineering students in 1999.
By this time, the Federal Government has just approved new laws and concepts concerning to the organization of universities and educational systems that would give more flexibility on the proposal of new engineering courses.
The main objectives of the engineering reform at UMC are the following:
provide a new profile for future engineers in order to make them drive the employment and technological evolution. In order to have this profile one needs a good foundation on basic sciences, a strong knowledge on basic concepts rather than on present technologies, self-learning capabilities and team work experience and capacity;
optimize the lectures and courses in order to meet the desirable engineer profile;
rationalize the teaching and learning of the basic sciences through the implementation of a Common Cycle to be conducted during the first and second years;
help the students find the best engineering career through wide information on the possibilities he/she has in engineering during the Common Cycle;
reduce the total load of lectures of the engineering course to about 3,600 hours, to be completed in 5 years through the integration of different programs.
The most important goals of this effort at UMC are:
the integration between basic sciences and specific engineering courses in the area of engineering education.
the complete revision of the curricula and a total course integration starting by the basic sciences of the first and second years and extending to the course as a whole;
the implementation of the Common Cycle, characterized by integrated lectures to be given during the first two years; after the conclusion of the Common Cycle the student will elect his/her field of specialization in engineering;
the promotion of an university-industry partnership to improve the engineering courses;
the encouragement of creativity, communication, teamwork, interpersonal and leadership skills; and
the development of entrepreneurial courses in accordance to the major trends for engineering employment.
The Common Cycle is characterized by integrated teaching of the basic sciences that are necessary for the formation of engineers, for instance Physics and Mathematics. This integrated teaching is complemented by practical examples that show the relevance of the basic sciences for engineering;
Besides Physics and Mathematics, some courses were included in the Common Cycle in order to introduce further concepts of engineering, like Introduction to Engineering and Materials Science that are being offered in the first year and Strength of Materials and Applied Chemistry, to be offered in the second year.
A special attention is being paid for the preparation of the lectures and additional activities - hands-on, visits and expert' speeches - in the course of Introduction to Engineering. For instance, in the current year, this course is being based on the development of a simplified project of a sugar cane and alcohol plant, that is based on real data kindly provided by Usina Sao Joao, one of the largest sugar and alcohol company in the State of Sao Paulo;
in addition to the learning of general principles of engineering this course will provide the students further information that will be useful to the election of his/her career after de Common Cycle, since all engineering specialties offered by UMC are exemplified in this project.
As a result of a well succeeded pilot project that took place during 1998, and in order to optimize the learning of Calculus, CCET is introducing computer-based teaching tools for engineering education, as "Mathematica" for all the freshmen during 1999.
Another innovation is the introduction of the experimental PLEPI Project that will to introduce courses of Portuguese and English Languages and Computing for all the freshmen in the whole UMC, including the engineering students; this is a pioneer and unusual project because the teaching of Portuguese and English languages are not part of the general curriculum in Brazilian universities; the teaching of Portuguese and English is a matter of K12 and in general it is very poorly given.; PEPLI project also introduced a self-learning technique for the study of English, Portuguese and Computing;
The notice of the new engineering curricula made the number of applications for UMC increase, when compared to 1998 and 1997 data.
As long as 1999 is the year of transition, the new engineering curricula is being implemented during this year for the freshman students, while sophomore and junior students stay on the traditional system.
The preliminary results of the last three months of lectures are encouraging and indicate that the new system in succeeding. Some corrections must be made but UMC is convinced that the design of the new curricula will contribute to the formation of capable engineers that will be prepared to face the engineering market place in the context of technological evolution, social conditions and the constantly changing economic Brazilian environment.