Product-based learning in an overseas study program: The ME110K course

Experience in a foreign country has long been considered a vital Part of a well-rounded education. Engineering students, though, seem to have been con sidered an exception; many students and educators see such experience as be ing unnecessary, or an unaffordable luxury given the large number of subjec ts that are required in the undergraduate curriculum. Stanford University h as made a commitiment to making overseas study available to as many student s as possible, including those who don't traditionally participate, A prime example of that effort is found in the Spring quarter Stanford Center for Technology and Innovation, a program held at its A Kyoto, Japan overseas ca mpus, targeted specifically (it students in engineering and science program s. Required courses are made available through videotape, live discussion, and such, with the support of on- and off-site professors and teachers' ass istants. Expanding on this, we have begun an overseas design project course , aimed ultimately at fulfilling the ABET capstone design course requiremen ts for upper-level engineering students. In this paper we report briefly on the first iteration of the course, taught in the Spring quarter of 1998 in collaboration with Prof. Itsuo Ohnaka of Osaka University Students in the course teamed up to work on design projects sponsored by four Japanese comp anies. Because of this unique setting, it was possible to educate the stude nts about the influence of culture on design, creativity, perception of nee ds; about conventional and unusual approaches to teamwork; and about often culture-dependant assumptions about what criteria an acceptable solution mu st possess. Studying design in such a foreign context, we have found, can b e an extraordinary, eye-opening experience, enabling students to better see the context of their future work, especially as more and more it-ill take place in a global arena. The course was taught again in the Spring of 2000, and included students from Osaka University in the project teams. As of th is writing, preparations are underway to carry it out again in the Spring o f 2001 in Kyoto and Berlin overseas campuses, with further enhancements.