ENHANCING PROBLEM SOLVING TECHNIQUES AND SKILLS OF ENGINEERING UNDERGRADUATE THROUGH FINAL YEAR PROJECT COURSE

These days many studies have been carried out to determine the abilities required for engineers to fit in today’s modern industry. These studies have highlighted few concerns on today’s engineering graduates on their soft and personal skill sets. Many of these graduates are graduating with good knowledge of fundamental engineering but they have lack of communication and problem solving skills. This paper describes the current practices of implementation of final year project course to enhance problem solving techniques and skills of undergraduate in Petroleum Engineering Department at Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS (UTP). In the first part of the paper, the objectives of this activity are going to be discussed. In short, it can be stated that the developed framework and approach enable students’ to apply knowledge, expanding thoughts and solving problems independently. In the second part, the key elements that ensure successful implementation of engineering undergraduate final year project course are going to be presented and discussed. This will include the course structure, the assessment components, the grading scheme and the management support system. In the third part of the paper, the analysis of performance of recent graduating students will be presented. At the end of the paper, some challenges in running the course and how we solve the issues will be discussed.