Abstract:

At the present time, university education is faced with the great challenge of preparing competitive graduates that will prosper in their future field of work. However, it’s not surprising that recent graduates, particularly engineering students, can’t identify the connection between the contents of the courses related to their profession with real life problems or situations. The present article illustrates the impact obtained from teaching undergraduate engineering students courses related to project viability based on the resolution of current problems proposed by the government of the state of Nuevo Leon, Mexico. The most important accomplishment of this educational experience was the noticeable improvement in student learning thanks to the enthusiasm obtained from being able to contribute to the improvement of the state’s community. When taking to practice their theoretical knowledge, students were able to propose viable solutions to the problems, aside from creating new and innovative products. Some of there products are currently in the process of being patented. In this article, some projects of successful cases carried out by students will be presented and the methodological tools used for this end will be discussed.

Keywords:

Learning experiences, problem resolution, challenge based learning, undergraduate education.