Since 2003, the Composition Program has worked with Pitt’s Swanson School of Engineering (SSOE) First-Year Program to provide first-year engineering students with a unique, interdisciplinary curriculum. Our yearlong curriculum complements the courses that first-year engineers take with their advisors (ENGR 0081 and ENGR 0082) and the first-year engineering team (ENGR 0011 Introduction to Engineering Analysis and ENGR 0012 Engineering Analysis).
In the fall term course, ENGCMP 0210: Seminar in Composition Engineering, students explore their plans, goals, and decisions as engineering students and as future engineers. Students consider the role of generative A.I. in academics; what type of engineering discipline/field they plan on pursuing and why; how they are coming to understand personal, academic, and professional integrity and ethics; and how they might continue to pursue personal and professional integrity as they became practicing engineers.
In the spring course, ENGCMP 0412: Engineering Communication in a Professional Setting, students engage in a multi-step process of working in teams of three to write, revise, and submit a paper to the SSOE First-Year Engineering Conference on Sustainability. Each student team then presents their paper at the conference, which typically draws an audience of at least 1000, including students’ families; engineers and other professionals from across the region; corporate recruiters for companies; Pitt Composition faculty; and SSOE faculty, graduate students, administrators, and alumni.
The program was created in the early 2000s by Beth Newborg, the founding director of the program, and Dan Budny from SSOE. Since 2023, it has been led by Renee Prymus from English and Irene Mena from SSOE. You can read about the program:
2019 IEEE World Conference Proceedings
2011 Combining Freshman Engineering and Composition Classes
2008 It Takes The Whole University To Instruct The Whole Engineer: Narratives Of Collaboration
For more information, contact Renee Prymus, director.