A Final Touch for the Environmental Engineering Students at the Onset of their Profession: Senior-Year Graduation Design Project – Case Study for 2014-2015

Abstract

This study reports the results of problem/design-based education offered by the Environmental Engineering Department of Istanbul Technical University (ITU) through an example of the senior-year Graduation Design Project (GDP), and the outcomes of introducing new environmental management considerations to environmental system design, and impacts of those on the senior-year Environmental Engineering undergraduate students. Overall outcomes of the study and the student entries gathered on risk assessment, uncertainty, sustainability, life-cycle-assessment, and resilience issues demonstrated that inclusion of those environmental management considerations to the senior-year GDP, as well as the new and improved approaches about handling the problem/design-based education, significantly broadened the perspective of the senior-year students at the onset of their profession.