March 13, 2024

William A

To whom it may concern:

I am writing to express my experience with the pilot class of THE BUILD program as well as the importance of the need to implement said program into engineering curriculum. As a former student of Dr. Branson, I feel I can elaborate on the benefits of said program if implemented and believe the program can help train the next United States workforce.

The landscape of engineering education, from curriculum design to teaching methodologies, seems to have remained static over generations. As a second-generation engineer and alumni of the University of Louisville (UofL), I've observed a striking resemblance between my educational experiences and those of my father's era. Despite the integration of rotational co-op programs at my school, a gap persists between academic preparation and the real-world demands of engineering careers in addition to student’s desired skillsets. As the demands of the profession change, the tolerance in this gap of skillsets is starting to shrink.

Due to changes in the demands of the profession, I felt that my participation in Dr. Branson’s pilot course marked a pivotal moment in my educational journey, helping me to bridge the divide between theoretical knowledge and its practical applications. This course offered a hands-on learning experience, enabling students to not only apply but also internalize engineering concepts through the creation of tangible projects. One of the significant moments that I remember from the CNC course was the construction of the spindle variable speed control. As we were designing the controller, we ran into an issue with the Mosfet that we used for pulse width modulation. As we tried to run the spindle, we noticed that the Mosfet would become extremely hot and ultimately self-destruct. I recall that we weren’t exactly sure what we did wrong until Dr. Branson gave us some guidance on troubleshooting. As we were troubleshooting, the first thing that we checked was to see what had burned and to determine if it was the individual part or something else. The next step was to pull out the oscilloscope and check what kinds of oscillating signals were getting from the Mosfet. In this case, we didn’t get any signals so either we did something incorrect in our configuration or there was a part failure thus warranting a datasheet check. Based on what we were seeing, there was a huge power output due to higher resistance. When it was mentioned by Dr. Branson’s guest design reviewers that our part had a higher maximum Vgs voltage than what our microcontroller was able to handle, it dawned on me what was happening. I recalled from my electronics courses how the resistance of a Mosfet began to increase as you leave saturation and enter the linear region. When it was pointed out that our Mosfet had too high of a Vgs I knew that our current Mosfet was only hovering in the linear region resulting in a higher power output thus burning up. We were able to correct this by replacing the old Mosfet with a new one with a saturation Vgs voltage. These scenarios don’t happen enough in higher education engineering curriculum, and it was beneficial to have the opportunity to collaborate with mentors who could confirm my suspicions as well as provide practical knowledge on what to look for and how to interpret alternative Mosfet datasheets so that we could see what minimum voltage our Mosfet needed for our microcontroller to be able to place it in the saturation region when switching the semiconductor on. It helped to be able to materialize and confirm what I had learned with what I had seen.

This experience highlighted a significant flaw in conventional education systems: a reliance on outdated models, updated with modern tools but lacking in substantive engagement with practical skills and critical thinking. The primary goal of higher education should be to expand students' knowledge and skillsets to be able to allow them to achieve their ambitions as well as more easily integrate into their careers. This has been a source of frustration for me since starting my higher education. While I won’t dispute the importance of covering engineering and mathematical foundations needed for the profession, it’s only half the skill sets that I feel students should have in order to be successful in their careers. Many universities, including the two institutions that I’ve attended (Virginia Tech and University of Louisville), seem to neglect to have meaningful hands-on application as an integral part of their curriculum. Institutions need to provide more support to students to cover and practice the topics used by industry through mentored and hands-on student projects. The curriculum needs to allow for going beyond the basics while providing support and guidance when the concepts become more advanced and allow students to practice, approach, and internalize what they learn in a classroom to what they see in their projects.

My experience in taking Dr. Branson’s class pilot class is that it highlights a new way to teach engineering curriculum that parallels ABET accreditation but supports students by being able to provide mentorship and practical knowledge as students tackle harder projects and transition into their careers.

Thank you for allowing me to share my perspective as a former student of THE BUILD program pilot. If there are any additional details or insights you seek, please do not hesitate to reach out.

Best regards, William A

D. Arnold B.S. Electrical Engineering Dec. 2023 University of Louisville B.S. Computer Science & Engineering Dec. 2023 University of Louisville M.Eng. Computer Science & Engineering Anticipated May 2025 University of Louisville