Assignments

This section contains assignment descriptions and examples of the final paper.

Assignment Descriptions

ASSIGNMENTS DUE DATES
Attend Career Week and ask three employers what they are looking for in terms of knowledge, skills and attitudes. Ask them what they see as the attributes of a successful modern engineer. Prepare a brief summary of what you learned. Ses #3
Prepare a brief summary as to what you see as the salient messages of Science and Engineering Indicators that you think are important? Ses #4

Prepare a short (1 page) review of the MIT culture.

Prepare some questions for the Admissions director.

Ses #5

Prepare a short (1 page) review on where MIT alumni have gone.

Prepare some questions for the Careers director.

Ses #6
Contact some of your friends who went to Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Stanford or Caltech, find out what their curriculum is, and compare and contrast it with the MIT curriculum. Write a short paper. Focus on the issues of skills and attitudes. Ses #7
Prepare a short (1 page) paper with your thoughts on the proposed changes at MIT based on the readings. Talk to some of the seniors you have met about the changes in student life and learning at MIT. Ses #8
Prepare a short (1 page) paper with your thoughts on Olin. How is it different or better or worse than MIT? Ses #9
Find a Cambridge-MIT Exchange student at MIT and ask them about their thinking on the MIT education and education more generally. Then find an MIT student who has been on the CME exchange and get their opinion now they have returned. Ses #10

Write a paper that addresses the discussion questions for Ses #12-13. Consider the following questions:

1. In light of what you have learned, is MIT doing the right things to prepare you for the future? What should MIT do?

2. Where do you want your education to take you? How can MIT help you achieve these goals?

Prepare a 15 minute oral presentation of the paper, which will be followed by 15 minutes of discussion.

Ses #12

Final Paper Examples

The table below contains sample final papers. All student work is used with permission.

FINAL PAPERS FILES
Example 1 (PDF)
Example 2 (PDF)
Example 3 (PDF)