When Engineering Students Write About Waste Electronics: Examination of Students’ Depth of Global Knowledge

• In Event: Roundtable Session 28
  In Roundtable Session: Postsecondary Institutions’ Role in Developing Global Citizens: U.S. and International Student Skill Development

Abstract

While many universities these days strive toward graduating “global citizens. Despite such institutional effort to graduate global citizens, studies that examine the status quo of undergraduate engineering education to graduate global citizens are scarce. The last quarter of the 20th century witnessed many notable changes in engineering education in the U.S., including growing recognition of the importance of ethics and social responsibility. The authors bring up a question to explore students’ depth of global knowledge that is necessary for them to be globally competent by examining students’ written essays from four universities in the U.S. Preliminary findings indicate that, lack of global knowledge is a major barrier to becoming a globally competent students.

Authors

• MJ (Mee Joo) Kim, University of Washington - Seattle

• Denise Wilson, University of Washington

• Cheryl Allendoerfer, University of Washington - Seattle