Course Focus: Engineering (design) at Sligo IT

Engineering students - they wear anoraks and spout incomprehensible mathematical theorems and wouldn't know a beautiful design if it came up and hit them in the face? Not necessarily.

One of the newest course options at Sligo IT is a bachelor of engineering (design). It doesn't start until September, but already students on the college's diploma in engineering course are expressing a keen interest in this two-year add-on degree.

"At the moment students in Sligo who want to specialise in this area have to do post-graduate work elsewhere," says Jim Hanley, acting head of Sligo IT's school of engineering. "Through this new course we are offering students a long-anticipated opportunity to stay in the west developing their qualifications along these lines."

The engineering school at the institute is "heavily involved in creating courses to meet skills shortages," he adds, "and this new course will train students to fill a particular niche." Initial intake will be for 16 students, increasing to 32 over the three years.

While the school of business studies at the college currently runs a similar course in industrial design, "traditionally students for that subject come from a background in art," says Hanley. "It's a course which focuses on form and design, looking at ways to make a forklift truck or a vacuum cleaner, for example, look particularly lovely.

"On the degree programme starting through the school of engineering in the autumn, we will also have a strong emphasis on the importance of the beauty of the form and design, but we're coming at it from an engineering perspective.

"We are training our students to produce something more integrated - a product which works highly efficiently, as well as looking great. They will be trained to do both functions equally well themselves. They won't need to defer to anyone else to develop their products."

The new degree was developed in consultation with industries and colleges with experience in engineering design. It builds on the institute's expertise in tool design, quality assurance, marketing and industrial automation and industrial design.

The first year of the degree programme is not semesterised and consists of a 26-week lecture period followed by a twenty week industrial placement period. The placements are organised by the Institute.

The following year is a typical semesterised year. Electives are available in both years and cater for intakes from both mechanical and electronics/ automation courses. The final year focuses on a substantial project, ideally based on an idea which comes from the placement.

The students will spend an entire day each week working on the project. "We anticipate students seeing a product on placement which they feel they can improve significantly", says Hanley. "Where possible they will work with the company they went on placement with, look at areas such as cost effectiveness, reliability, how well the product does the job required, and how nice it looks."

Assesment is exam-based, although the result of the project will have a significant bearing on the overall degree result. "We will be training our students to make products which people want to buy, both for their beauty and their efficiency.

"Whether it's something like the talking weighing scales or an industrial product, it will be designed to be strong and durable. Basically students will learn to create a product that is of the highest standard possible."

The lecturers on the course will mostly come from industry-related backgrounds themselves. It's envisaged that their practical knowledge, rather than an academic perspective, will be of most benefit to the students.

According to Hanley, the degree will be available to students who have a grade two in a branch of engineering "cognate with the course."

The ultimate aim is that the students will be able to move into the workforce as "people who will lead the company in design", says Hanley. "We aim to develop people who have travelled the entire spectrum of the production design journey. In the long run we would expect to see our students setting up on their own as consultant engineer/designers."

`We will be training our students to make products which people want to buy, both for their beauty and their efficiency'