Capstone engineering design experience: Opportunities to develop and implement skills that work for real people doing real jobs

The capstone design courses in Petroleum and Natural Gas Engineering program at Penn StateUniversity are structured to provide students with a three- semester capstone experience. This sequence of three courses was started as a new course learning model within the context of ABET 2000 Criteria and was reformatted again during the 2007-08 Academic Year. The design sequence starts with the beginning of the spring semester of the junior year and continues during the subsequent fall and spring semesters of the senior year. These three courses provide students with the opportunity to put all the course material they have taken (and they are taking concurrently) into practice. Students typically work in three to four person teams on the same project during the last three semesters of their college education and team compositions are retained throughout the duration of the design project. The results of each phase of the design project are presented in front of a panel whose members are comprised of faculty members and industry representatives at the conclusion of each of the three semesters. During the capstone design experience students utilize and implement their analytical and numerical skills and their decision making competencies in petroleum engineering applications. Further emphasis is also placed on improving their soft skills such as written and verbal communication proficiency development during the creative process of engineering design.