The First-Year Student Experience

First-year engineering students work together on a project

UVA Engineering's first-year curriculum guides students through multiple team-based projects, asking them to consider Challenge Essential Questions — prompts asking students to articulate who is affected by their design, what trade-offs they are making, and how they are approaching ethics and sustainability. 

Fall Semester: Expand Project

In the fall semester, the Expand Project asks student teams to engineer a solution to a real-world scenario, building skills in MATLAB, CAD, 3D printing, and tool safety; in the SMOOSH (Sustainably Minded Observable Obstacles Situated Here) Project, teams identify and solve an actual problem on UVA Grounds, required to understand it thoroughly before building.

First-year engineering students observe another team's project
Prof. Esther Tian tests a student project
First-year engineering students work together on a project

Spring Semester: SMOOSH Project

During the spring semester, students are matched with a real client and spend several months defining and solving an actual problem. Teams develop project management tools including Work Breakdown Structures, Linear Responsibility Charts, and Gantt Charts, and present a final report to their client.

Students work together on a smart diaper project

Develop a Diagnostic Smart Diaper for Premature Babies
 

Client: UVA Biomedical Engineering and UVA Pediatric Nephrology

Problem: There is a critical need for a wearable diagnostic diaper that can safely, inexpensively, and reliably monitor key health indicators in premature infants. Such a device could rapidly analyze urine chemistry to inform real-time decisions by doctors and nurses in neonatal intensive care units (NICUs) about hydration, kidney function, and nutritional status. Measuring biomarkers that are available in the urine of premature babies is essential because premature babies have a very small blood volume (100 mL, or less), which prohibits doing regular blood draws for standard blood laboratory tests. 

Project: UVA Engineering students are developing a wearable diaper for premature babies that enables collection and analysis of key biomarkers in the urine. First-year engineering students are working on developing and optimizing the chemistry for detecting key urine biomarkers using current methods as guidance, fabricating and validating colorimetric biosensors that utilize the chemistry and are safe and compatible with baby diapers, and developing an app that quantitatively analyzes images of the colorimetric biosensor acquired with a smartphone camera. 

Students display community engagement materials

Help NASA's Quesst Mission Communicate About Supersonic Flight 
 

Client: UVA Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering 

Problem: NASA's Quesst mission, which features the one-of-a-kind X-59 aircraft, will demonstrate technology to fly supersonic, or faster than the speed of sound, without generating loud sonic booms. As the X-59 is tested, NASA will survey how people respond and share these reactions with national and international regulators to inform the establishment of new data-driven acceptable noise thresholds related to supersonic commercial flight over land. 

Project: UVA Engineering students are helping NASA engage local communities and K-12 students during X-59 testing. The project focuses on creating outreach communications for these audiences that explain the science behind sonic booms and how the X-59 avoids creating a loud sonic boom. It teaches first-year engineering students how to communicate a complex topic to the public and gives them opportunities to engage community members in STEM topics. 

Developing the Whole Engineer

Academic advising, career development, and ethics education are embedded in the first-year engineering curriculum, ensuring that every student is prepared for their second year and beyond with an engineering mindset, an advisor who believes in them, the technical knowledge they need to succeed, a solution they built for someone who needed it, and above all else a clearer sense of who they are as engineers, why that matters, and what it means to lead.

  • Academic Advising

    First-Year Engineering Center faculty serve as academic advisors to first-year students before they choose a major — an embedded model that puts advising inside the same ongoing relationship as the coursework itself. Unlike traditional advisor-advisee relationships, First-Year Engineering Center faculty both teach and advise their students and see them multiple times a week, building strong relationships that may last well beyond the first-year experience. 

  • Career Development

    Career preparation also runs through both semesters — how to write professional emails, how to conduct informational interviews, how to draft resumes — alongside Majors and Minors Open Houses that introduce students to the full range of engineering disciplines and provide day-to-day guidance on navigating the transition from high school to college. 

  • Engineering Ethics

    Ethics education is woven into the first-year engineering curriculum. Students consider their approaches to ethics and sustainability in each project, and engage with speakers who visit UVA Engineering as part of the Engineering Character Strength Initiative's Moments of Strength speaker series.

Annual Events

  • Prof. Rob Tieman talks with a student

    Majors and Minors Open Houses

    The First-Year Engineering Center hosts majors and minors open houses each fall and spring to allow students to explore the different engineering disciplines.

  • A student explains their project during the First-Year Engineering Expo

    First-Year Engineering Expo

    All first-year engineering students participate in the expo, which is an opportunity to share design projects aimed at helping help clients around Charlottesville and beyond.

Upcoming Events

See More Events for First-Year Engineering Students