Preparing Undergraduates for the Final-Year Project

Students in the department of engineering all complete an individual research project in their final year. This project has a 40 credit point weighting and involves the student managing their time, researching a problem by themselves, and developing a solution (e.g. implementation, equation derivation, new method, etc.). To prepare students for this project, we have designed a methodology of project hand-over and mentoring that teaches students the skills they require during the third year. This includes the skills of writing and presenting papers and the confidence to enter a project and make immediate progress. We teach these techniques by presenting the students with a problem and guiding them through the process of researching the available solutions and then developing their own and publishing it. With our methodology, we have observed our students vastly out-performing others in the department, specifically with regards to publishing rates (75% in the most recent year), impact during poster presentations (much better reception) and overall marks for the thesis submission (average of over 70). Furthermore, the skills obtained significantly raise employability, with most students having jobs well before the end of the degrees. This has been sustained over multiple years.