Inter-disciplinary Project Based Freshman Engineering Curriculum at NJIT

The new inter-disciplinary project based freshman engineering curriculum at NJIT is described in this paper. The course is called Fundamentals of Engineering (FE) 101. In this course, the freshman engineering students are introduced to two disciplines of engineering – Mechanical, and Electrical and Computer Engineering working together as an unit on the project. The students are also introduced the concept of teamwork in engineering design project. The selected project is Heat-sink and Fan for Intel’s PentiumÒ Microprocessor. Heat-sinks and fans are devices used to dissipated heat generated by microelectronic devices- in this case, microprocessor or CPU. Heat-sink and fan assembly is mounted on the top of microprocessor. This allows more heat to be dissipated through conduction and forced convection heat transfer, and consequently lowers the device operating temperature. The primary purpose of a heat-sink and fan is to maintain the microprocessor temperature below the maximum allowable temperature specified by the device manufacturer. Furthermore, the course is paired and running concurrently with Humanities and Social Science (HSS) 101 and Computer and Information Science (CIS) 101. HSS faculty advises the students on the preparation of the project reports and oral presentations. Applications software required for the project is taught by CIS faculty