Creating Thought Leaders for the 21st Century:The Role of Personal Development in Creating a Whole-Brain Engineer. Poster presentation for Notre Dame First-Year Engineering Experience Conference

1. Creating Thought Leaders for the 21 st Century: The Role of Personal Development in Creating a Whole-Brain Engineer “ Reforming the First-Year Engineering Experience” University of Notre Dame August 2-4, 2009 Joseph Holtgreive, McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science, Northwestern University

2. Identifying an Unmet Need Over several years our graduating seniors consistently ranked “Career Services & Job Placement” as the lowest in satisfaction on both the COFHE and EBI exit surveys. When compared against our peer institutions we also ranked lowest in satisfaction for this factor. When considering how we should address this area of improvement for McCormick, we began by defining the issue as one of student development. We defined student development to include both career development and personal development over a student’s entire college career. At the heart of this process are extra- and co-curricular experiences. Our goal is to create a structure that increases access and opportunity for students to learn both professionally and personally from these experiences.

3. Our Approach to Student Development Entrepreneurship Career Development Personal Development Self Awareness Societal Awareness Setting Course Co-op Internships Study Abroad Faculty Research Service Learning Professional Preparation Ethics Networking Communication Etiquette Negotiation Change Agent Entrepreneurship Experiential Learning