The heart of the BUILD program is four flagship BUILD courses. To make the program tenable, we do not modify graduation requirements of existing programs. Rather, we created two special electives and formed sections of two existing courses developed specifically for THE BUILD program to close the technical gaps. We also modify key non technical courses.

The BUILD Foundation and Capstone courses fulfill existing freshman Foundation and senior Capstone courses, and the Sophomore Cornerstone and Junior Keystone courses serve as technical electives within existing programs. There are, however, many other important skills modern engineers need to be successful which must also be integrated into the existing academic system.

A complete engineering education MUST go beyond technical skills. They need to be able to work in multidisciplinary teams, communicate effectively with both engineers and non-engineers, write project documentation, and attend to business concerns.

Like the technical courses, we need to somehow incorporate all of this without changing graduation requirements. The concept is to create special sections of existing classes: a section of English that focuses on technical writing and documentation, a Psychology section on teamwork, a Business class with a focus on entrepreneurial engineering, and an Economics course which teaches students to manage project scheduling and finances. These would fulfill the existing requirements for English as well as electives in Social Science, Business, and Economics.