Global Engineering Alliance for Research and Education (GEARE) - A Comprehensive Study & Intern Abroad Program for Engineering Students
Year: 2009
Editor: Clarke, A, Ion, W, McMahon, C and Hogarth, P
Author: Albers, Albert; Burkardt, Norbert; Becke, Claudia
Section: COLLABORATIVE DESIGN
Page(s): 20-25
Abstract
GEARE offers the possibility of internationalization for universities and students for undergraduate and for graduate students in mechanical engineering. Five distinguished universities all over the world are involved: Purdue University (USA), University Karlsruhe (Germany), IIT/UICT Mumbay (India), Shanghai Jiao Tong University (China) and Tecnológico de Monterrey (Mexico). Based on the Karlsruhe Education Model for Product Development (KaLeP) GEARE supplements the education of engineers to prepare them for challenging careers following their education in the global workplace. GEARE focuses both on research and on the multi-national education of future engineers, by student exchange programs on different levels and by multi-national project team work. A main component of GEARE is the Undergraduate Student Exchange Program: a comprehensive study & intern abroad program for engineering students. Students participate in an orientation program including language and culture at their home university, an international internship in an industrial company abroad, one semester of study abroad with fully transferable engineering course credits; and a two-semester multinational design-team project (one semester at home university, one abroad) with students from the international partner universities working on industry-inspired projects. The two-semester multinational design-team project within this program will be presented in this paper primarily, focusing on Purdue University (USA), Shanghai Jiao Tong University (China) and University Karlsruhe (Germany) exemplarily.
Keywords: Engineering, education, internationalization, globalization, students, soft skills, professional skills, kalep, team work, project work, geare