How do engineering programs teach students to think about public safety?
Engineering programs generally teach students to prevent accidents and disasters and reduce risks to people’s lives, health, and the environment through technical knowledge and practice. In classes, laboratory work, design exercises, and case analysis, they may study risk assessment, laws and ethics, quality control, communication with users, and team reporting, while considering trade-offs among safety, cost, performance, and other requirements.
Key points
- Students learn to consider safety from the early stages of design and development.
- Laboratory work, design exercises, and case analysis can be used to identify and assess risks.
- Regulations and ethics, quality control, communication with users, and team reporting are treated as parts of safety practice.
Things to check
- The topics covered and the amount of practical work vary by university, department, course, and academic year, so the curriculum and syllabus should be checked.