University of Louisville pilot program

After we had run the program for engineering graduates for five years, we were asked by our customers why this information isn’t covered in undergraduate programs. Could we include this in traditional undergraduate programs?

As a result, we created a university pilot program to see if it the courses could work in the college environment. We spoke with the The National Science Foundation, Morehead State University, George Mason University, NC State, and Arizona State University and ultimately ran a two-year pilot program at the University of Louisville from 2020 to 2023. The university environment is radically different from the government engineering sector and there were numerous challenges that we had to address, including strong reluctance by departments to teach across disciplines, serious funding limitations, and a lack of university experience with 21st century engineering and manufacture. We were able to address these issues and created a new program called Technical Hands-on Engineering Building Undergraduate Learning Departments (The BUILD) Program. At the suggestions of people from engineering employers, the Department of Commerce, Fairfax public schools, and many others we designed a K-12 program, a trades program, and a workforce development program. Subsequently the program grew and is now called the Better Utilization of Interdisciplinary Learning and Development (BUILD) program. If you want to see the progression, see the BUILD name history.

Summary: What’s in this for you?

Engineering school can be intimidating. We looked closely at why it is intimidating and found it was in large part because you were immersed in academic lessons that were not connected to doing things. In this program you will always know why you are learning something and what you can do with that knowledge that you can’t do without it. You’re going to want to learn so you can do things rather than having to learn them to pass an exam. That’s what we learned in this pilot program!