Industry Participation in the Interdisciplinary Team Design Project Course of a Master of Architectural Engineering Program

This is a case study of extensive industry participation in the capstone design course of the Master of Architectural Engineering program at the University of Nebraska – Lincoln. This course, entitled Interdisciplinary Team Design Project, pairs teams of professional engineers and students to provide mentoring, assessment, and feedback, as the students work on interdisciplinary teams to design the building systems for a real-world project. For the spring 2010 semester, over 33 industry professionals participated in the course, each contributing approximately 40 to 50 hours of mentoring and assessment. This paper describes the course format and industry involvement, which provides students with invaluable, hands-on learning experiences