The number of undergraduate students enrolled in the department (juniors and seniors) is shown in Figure 2. Currently, 16% more students are enrolled than in Academic Year 99-00. Since 1997-98, we have focused on enhancing the diversity of the student body. There has been a measurable percentage increase in the enrollment of women (from 15% to 26%) and underrepresented minorities (from 6% to 17%).

Undergraduate students enter the University of Washington in a pre-major status. They are eligible to apply to the department for early admission if their GPA is over 2.5; otherwise they apply at the end of their sophomore year. The general guidelines for evaluating students for admission include:

Community College transfer students may be admitted directly into the department provided that they meet the criteria above and are competitive academically.

Over the past several years, undergraduate applications have ranged from 52 to 78 annually. Students can apply to multiple departments. Of the students admitted, roughly 60% join the Department. Specific admissions data is given in Table 4.

With our new unified MSE curriculum, and with our new combined BS/MS program (described later in this chapter), we expect our acceptance numbers to increase. The former offers students a broader program better in line with industry needs and with student interest. The latter offers a more efficient, direct path to the MS degree (with no change in the BS or MS requirements), which is of interest to many of the better students. While we anticipate a small increase in the number of degrees awarded beyond the current 35-40 per year as a result of these programs, the major effect of these changes will be an increase in the quality of our students.

Student recruitment is accomplished in several ways. Most students are unfamiliar with materials as a field of study when they consider majors. Our introductory course, MSE 170, is the primary means by which students learn about the field, and a number of students cite their experience in 170 as the reason they have chosen MSE. We also provide an extensive number of outreach programs for K-12 students. One of these is our highly successful teacher training program, where teachers are trained to teach a Materials Science and Technology (MST) curriculum in middle and high schools. Over 30 high schools in Washington State teach an MST course at present. In addition, our student societies visit classrooms and give introductory presentations on materials as a field of study. The department also participates actively in our annual Engineering Open House which targets students in grades 6–12. These efforts have increased the numbers of students with some prior understanding of materials and have assisted the department in increasing student quality and the numbers of students who apply.

Starting in the 2002-03 year, the Chair, in the exit interview, asked students to identify their reasons for choosing Materials Science and Engineering. The responses received from the students are arranged in decreasing frequency of responses.

During the 2002-03 academic year, a group of undergraduate students, with the guidance and advice of Prof. Ohuchi, produced a video for the recruitment of undergraduate students. This DVD is included with this report (Appendix C-1). We are currently showing this to a select group of students and getting their feedback. Based on this, it will be updated this year and will be used in many of our recruiting activities (e.g., Open House, school visit, discussion with pre-engineers).

Once admitted, students are evaluated using grades in courses and participation in research and design projects with faculty and graduate students. Participation in co-op or internship programs, and participation in activities of our professional society chapters is strongly encouraged to enhance their educational experience.

The department maintains an advising Undergraduate Planbook (Appendix C-2). These books are provided to the students upon entry and kept up to date by our academic counselor. A student may graduate using the specific requirements in the Planbook in effect when they enter, or under the requirements in existence at their graduation date.

Students are advised in a two-tiered system. An academic counselor monitors student progress and advises students on an individual basis in terms of specific academic needs and requirements. This counselor position was put in place in 1999 as a result of student input indicating difficulty in getting appointments to see their faculty advisor, and a lack of knowledge of some registration details by faculty members. The counselor also reviews the full academic program of the student prior to graduation to ensure that all academic needs have been met. Each student also has a faculty member as advisor for general academic and career goals and on specific courses to take to meet these specific goals. This faculty contact is essential for professional and career advising while the counselor has greatly assisted in assuring that students are properly advised in terms of requirements, sequence of courses and timely graduations.

Additional advising takes place in certain courses. MSE 310, the introductory course, includes discussions of the general curriculum, pre-requisites and course sequences. Also included are discussions of career fields and courses appropriate for developing background in those areas. Advising and career guidance also takes place in the senior design course sequence (MSE 491 and 492).

Courses in the academic program are designed to meet the specific academic program objectives of the Department. Students who satisfactorily complete the full set of required and elective courses will have met the departmental academic program objectives. To ensure that this is the case, the department conducts a variety of interviews and surveys of students, the results of which are fed back into program planning and development. These include student course evaluations, focus group discussions, exit interviews and surveys of recent graduates.

The specific program educational objectives for the undergraduate programs of the department are based on a combination of the ABET "Objectives for degrees in Materials Engineering…" and additional objectives established by the department. The specific program objectives, strategies for achieving those objectives, assessment procedure and specific examples of changes in the undergraduate program are presented in Appendix C-3.

The department pays special attention to recognize the achievements of the students. The faculty advisor and the academic counselor work with the students in helping them identify appropriate Fellowships and Scholarships to apply for and actively nominate students for awards and honors. As a result of this, a significant number of the students from the Department receive these awards and honors. The Department recognizes the students who have received these awards in several ways. These include a congratulatory e-mail from the Chair, announcement at the faculty meetings, listing in the Department newsletter, announcement at the Department Graduation Ceremonies, and announcement at the annual Faculty and Staff Retreats. In Appendix C-4 we present the list of awards that the undergraduate students have received in the last two years. In addition to the external awards, several Departmental awards recognize the academic achievement and leadership potential of the students.

These awards are:

Candidates for these awards are identified by the academic counselor and the Undergraduate Committee. The award recipients are elected by the full faculty at a faculty meeting in the spring quarter of every year.

We believe that a higher level of understanding and learning can be achieved by "doing". As a result of this philosophy, the departmental curriculum has a heavy emphasis on laboratory courses and laboratory components in regular courses. Other elements of experiential learning in the curriculum are:

The department takes considerable pride in being able to recruit and retain a diverse group of students. A number of national studies have indicated the crucial need to focus on the training of women and underrepresented minorities in engineering to address the future technical workforce needs of the country. In addition, our recruiters have consistently given us the message that they desire a diverse work force. As a result, we have aligned some of our recruitment efforts with programs focused on enhancing the diversity (ethnic, gender and people with disabilities) of students in science and engineering. We are fortunate that the University of Washington is a leader nationally in such programs. In particular, we have worked closely with Math, Engineering and Science Achievement (MESA), Women in Science and Engineering (WiSE), The Minority Science and Engineering Program (MSEP) and the Disabilities, Opportunity, Internetworking and Technology (DO-IT). Three of these programs (MESA, WiSE and DO-IT) have received the Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics and Engineering Mentoring. A measurable result of these interactions is that our student body is highly diverse. For the year 2002-03, 23% of our undergraduate degrees were awarded to women. The College average was 27% for the same year. The national average for women receiving engineering degrees during 2001-02 (the latest ASEE data available) was 21%. As of autumn 2003, 17% of our undergraduate students are underrepresented minorities compared to 5% for the College.

In 1995, the department reduced its prerequisite requirements from 66 to 49 in order to make it easier for students to complete their degrees within four years.

The hiring of an academic counselor in 1999 has been instrumental in increasing our retention rate. Student progress is monitored more closely. Each student meets with the academic counselor and lays out an individual program in writing. The academic counselor encourages undergraduate students to complete their degree applications as early as possible. When the Department changed to the single degree curriculum, all courses were reviewed for content; multiple junior lab courses were condensed to one junior lab course sequence, increasing efficiency. In addition, there are very few required courses in the senior year. This gives the students flexibility in scheduling to take the required courses for graduation.

Recently, we have started keeping track of the time each student spends in the Department. The minimum residence time is 6 quarters. The students who entered the Department between 1999 and 2001 have graduated, on average, in 6.5 quarters. Of students who entered the department in spring or autumn of 2001, 55% took 6 quarters to complete their degrees, 33% took 7 quarters, and 3% took 8 quarters. Of the 33 students who entered the department in spring/autumn 2001, 30, or 91%, have graduated within 8 quarters as of autumn 2003. All the departmental courses that the students need to complete their requirements are available to them.

Student career placement is assisted by the faculty in terms of identifying available positions through their professional contacts. The department also maintains placement information, posts advertisements of specific job openings, and maintains a full listing of materials-related companies in the State. Annual resume books are produced and distributed to companies interested in students for co-op, internship and permanent positions.

Career placement is also discussed in the senior design course, MSE 491, and students are asked to register at the University Placement Center. Our recent experience is that despite these prompts, many student delay their job search until just before they graduate, which delays their obtaining employment. In addition, many students indicate that they do not want to leave the Puget Sound area and, therefore, sometimes accept jobs in which they are underemployed. This trend is evident from exit and alumni surveys and has become serious. We are discussing various strategies with the students to alleviate this problem. Every other year, we conduct a thorough analysis of the career status of graduates 1-year after their graduation. Figure 4 below shows data on the status of BS graduates one year after graduation. As can be seen, 100% of our graduates are employed or in graduate school. On average, about one third of our graduates pursue graduate degrees. For 2002-03, 14 of 49 graduates are in graduate school and 16 of 49 had jobs lined up by graduation in June 2003. During the summer of 2004, we will conduct a comprehensive survey of their employment statistics.

The MSE department is run democratically with faculty participation in all levels of administration. Our Undergraduate Committee has the primary responsibility of overseeing, administering and suggesting modifications to the undergraduate program. All major decisions are made by the entire faculty in regularly scheduled (twice a month) faculty meetings. In addition, we have an annual retreat (late September) in which the key areas of focus for the coming year are identified. The research faculty members are also a part of the decision-making process. They have always provided advice to the department and have been involved in committees (including the Undergraduate committee). A few years ago, the University Senate passed a resolution that gives research faculty a vote in most matters of the Department and the University.

The size of the faculty is adequate for our teaching programs. However, a few critical areas of materials need additional faculty members. These include faculty with expertise in semiconductor and metallic materials. Due to a series of retirements in the past few years, we have had reduced numbers of full-time faculty members. As a result, we have relied on some of our research and affiliate faculty members to teach a few of the courses. These research and affiliate faculty are compensated from State funds when they teach. Interestingly, our research faculty members have a very good teaching record. Prof. Brian Flinn (a research Associate Professor) received the Outstanding Educator Award from the College of Engineering (2000), Prof. Fatih Dogan (a research Associate Professor) received the Teacher of the Year award from both our junior and senior class in 2001, and other Research Faculty members have consistently had high levels of student evaluation.

One of our strengths is the size of our department. Because of the low student to faculty ratio, and because faculty teach all of our classes, there is a very high level of personal contact between students and faculty. In all the feedback that we get back from students and alumni, this aspect of the department is highlighted as the major positive aspect of the department. The faculty members know most of the students by name and the students feel comfortable to talk to faculty and get informal advising on all aspect of their professional (and sometimes personal) life. The graduate students in the department are also a very important part of formal and informal education of the undergraduate students. As teaching assistants and as researchers in the labs where undergraduates are conducting research, they have direct contact and interactions with undergraduate students. All of our graduate students have offices in the department and are easily available. Once again, in the feedback sessions, the undergraduate students have noted that informal interactions with graduate students (sometimes late at night or on the weekends) are very important contributions to their learning. With both faculty and graduate students, some key elements of this informal advising are career advice, advice regarding graduate schools and planning a course of study. These informal interactions also represent a forum where the faculty and the graduate students can convey the excitement and the broad picture of our discipline to the undergraduate students.

The courses offered by the Department are assessed by the students taking the classes. Figure 5 presents the composite assessment of all the courses taught by department faculty in the last academic year. On average, the departmental ranking is comparable to the assessment of College courses.

In addition to assessment of individual courses by the students, peer evaluations of teaching, self-evaluations of courses, and exit interviews with graduating students, assessments of the program are conducted by the Center for Instructional Development and Research. Details of these various assessment mechanisms and how the results are used to enhance the quality of the program are presented in Appendix C-3.

See Appendix C-7 for catalog descriptions of undergraduate courses.

By far, this was the most significant change in the undergraduate program of the department in the last ten years. Beginning with the junior class of autumn 2002, students were admitted only into a common degree program, Bachelor of Science in Materials Science and Engineering. This common degree program is an evolution from the older degree programs (in Ceramic Engineering and Metallurgical Engineering), with a required core similar to the core courses in the older degree programs, plus opportunities for students to specialize in specific areas, including ceramics, metal, electronic materials, structural materials, polymers and composite materials. Faculty expertise has been expanded to enable this broader program. The development of this common degree program was based primarily on feedback from students’ employers and alumni who have indicated a need for a broader materials education to meet the challenges of today's and tomorrow's technologies.

We believe that the combination of our two undergraduate degree programs (BS in Ceramic and Metallurgical Engineering) into a single degree in Materials Science and Engineering is an outstanding example of using a comprehensive process to improve the undergraduate program. It relied on detailed feedback from various constituencies, benchmarking with peer departments and extensive and participatory discussion among all faculty members. In our opinion, the change in degree had the required outcome of enhancing the undergraduate educational experience of our undergraduate students by making it more relevant. Further details of the development and implementation of the single degree curriculum are presented in Appendix C-8. This program was started in 2002 and the first BS degrees in Materials Science & Engineering were awarded in autumn 2002.

The goal of the combined BS/MS program in Materials Science and Engineering is to provide a more direct route to the MS degree for well-qualified undergraduate students who wish for more in-depth, graduate-level work in preparation for work in industry or for a Ph.D. program. This program combines the BS and MS programs of the MSE Department to create a more efficient and continuous academic program that leads directly to the MS degree. The greater depth of the program will better prepare students for both industry and for Ph.D. programs, either at UW or elsewhere. The considerable industrial demand for both MS and Ph.D. degreed graduates will be aided by this program and these students will also be able to proceed to Ph.D. programs for academia as well. The program, is designed to enable students to earn both BS and MS degrees in 5 years. See Appendix C-9 for specific requirements and application procedure. This program started in 2001. To date, 1 student has completed both degrees under the BS/MS program and there are currently 3 students in the program, all in the MS portion.

The goal of the College of Engineering Honors Program is to provide an opportunity for the gifted undergraduate engineering student to develop to his/her fullest extent. Since 1993, the Department has participated in this program. The details of the program, including eligibility requirements are presented in Appendix C-10. Currently, there are 8 MSE students in this program.