IEP modules
In addition to How to Change the World and Scenario Weeks, the Integrated Engineering Programme involves undertaking specific modules.
- Engineering Challenges | Design and Professional Skills I & II | Mathematical Modelling and Analysis I & II | IEP Minors
Students undertaking a programme that follows the Integrated Engineering Programme (IEP) take the following modules, in addition to non-IEP modules prescribed by their departments. Some IEP modules are taught by departments for their own students, and/or for students from other departments; some by the IEP team; and some by a mixture of these.
Rather than dictating specific practices, the IEP enables alternative implementations within the frame of a progression of supported Project- and Problem-based Learning (PjBL and PBL, respectively) elements. This supports harmonisation of the values of the Faculty with local innovations and adaptations relevant to each discipline or department, and facilitates a carefully and holistically scaffolded programme of learning.
Watch staff, students and employers in the IET's 'Engineering All Around Us' video about the IEP (2016):
Engineering Challenges
The first PBL activity that the students experience, from day one of their classes, occurs within the Engineering Challenges module. It's designed to provide an induction to the style of learning needed to successfully engage in other IEP PBL elements, and engages students in sizable real-world problems, explicitly connected to societal impact.
Engineering Challenges is structured as two five-week projects to provide enough time for students to engage in the supporting skill-based and theoretical activities, such as in Mathematical Modelling and Analysis and Design and Professional Skills, alongside their projects.
The first project or challenge is delivered in the first five weeks of Year 1. It’s a a single discipline project which orientates students to their department and introduces them to their chosen discipline as well as the richness and innovative nature of the department’s research, and the early stages of design.
The second is an interdisciplinary challenge consisting of a single overarching contextual problem that takes in seven disciplines, wherein students work and learn in cross-departmental teams.
Our aim is that students understand the design cycle, societal impact, research skills, transferable skills, knowledge and skills across disciplinary boundaries.
Example of Challenge 1: UCL Department of Civil Engineering's news article about its Challenge 1 student video winners (project on constructing earthquake-resistant structures, in collaboration with students from Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile).
Design and Professional Skills I & II
Through Design and Professional Skills I & II, we introduced a comprehensive thread of design and professional practice workshops aligned to the practical activities throughout the IEP. The positioning and nature of these modules maximises what students gain from the programme, and develops their individual skillsets, both technical and non-technical, in the context of engineering problems.
These two modules bring together a range of topics required by all the major accreditation bodies and connect them core of the curriculum.
In Design and Professional Skills I & II, we have created a robust and engaging multi-year syllabus of instruction in ethics, professional standards, sustainability, legal and management concepts, communication, risk and safety, creative and critical thinking, decision making, design and teamwork. Professional skills were deliberately connected with design due to our belief that it is through the process of design that these skills are put into practice.
While there is common ground, the context around the skills we want to impart in these modules is fairly distinct in each discipline (consider the ethical concepts relevant to a computer scientist compared to those relevant to a biomedical engineer). Therefore, we engaged with staff in each UCL Engineering department to develop specialist routes through this common syllabus structure.
Students undertake Design and Professional Skills I in Year 1, and Design and Professional Skills II in Year 2. Each Department's iteration of these modules can be viewed in the UCL Module Catalogue.
Mathematical Modelling and Analysis I & II
We feel that the ability to see the broad application of mathematics both inside and outside of a student’s home discipline is particularly valuable. Therefore, we offer a faculty-wide mathematics syllabus, which is based on a common lecture series alongside discipline-specific tutorial and workshop sessions. Here, mastery of theoretical and technical content is connected with its application to real-world engineering problems, encouraging in students an authentic appreciation of the relevance of what they are learning.
Students are taught core mathematical concepts, and modelling and analysis skills that underpin the practice of engineering. They learn computer programming and simulation using mathematical tools; MATLAB is integrated as a core tool for applying mathematics to engineering
Students explore in more detail aspects of mathematical equations, and focus on the application of taught concepts to problems derived from the engineering domain. They are expected to analyse specific problems and identify the appropriate mathematics to realise a solution, and to be able to do this individually and in teams.
Mathematical Modelling & Analysis I is delivered in the first term, in Year 1. Mathematical Modelling & Analysis II is delivered over two terms in Year 2.
Watch Professor Abel Nyamapfene, IEP team member, speak in his professorial inaugural lecture about why and how he teaches mathematics in this way (from 47:10):
IEP Minors
IEP Minors provide students with opportunities to undertake in-depth studies in additional topics, either from disciplines complementary to engineering, or from interdisciplinary subjects that draw on the research strengths or industrial partnerships of academics within the faculty. All students study an IEP Minor pathway as part of their degree, which consists of three modules grouped together.
Students gain in-depth knowledge of their IEP Minor, which they choose out of a possible 19 pathways. Options include but are not limited to data science, modern foreign languages, applied chemistry, robotics, intelligent systems, and entrepreneurship. Students take one module in their IEP Minor in Year 2, and two in Year 3.
As IEP Minors are open to IEP students from across UCL Engineering, students work with peers from both within and outside their own disciplines. As is the case with How to Change the World and Scenarios, with IEP Minors, engineering students and students studying management sciences may also study together (provided they selected the same IEP Minor).
Deliberately few IEP Minors have prerequisites; of these, restrictions are often intended to prevent students from repeating learning they have already undertaken, or will undertake, elsewhere in their degree.
All IEP Minors in the 2024-2025 academic year are listed in the IEP Minor brochure.
If you are a prospective IEP student, you may be interested in the UCL Engineering 'How we teach' page.
