Message from Dean Fauchet

At the Vanderbilt University School of Engineering, we are fortunate to admit some of the brightest engineering students in the country and from around the world. We teach these students a rigorous curriculum and welcome them to state-of-the-art laboratories. We also go one step further: We prepare these talented students to be leading independent thinkers, problem solvers and innovators in engineering or any other field through the design experience.

At Vanderbilt, student design teams solve contemporary industrial problems, which adds legitimacy and the external vetting of ideas. This helps turn ideas into reality. The results are the creation of intellectual property, establishment of startup companies, and most important, use in the real world.

Engineering design does not happen in a silo where one discipline is isolated from another. Many design projects involve undergraduates from different majors using their combined skills to solve a real problem for a real client. In a departure from other design courses, our engineering management students also take part, focusing on product development, commercialization strategy and entrepreneurship. Design projects are selected to prepare students for the real-world expectations of networking, communication, team building, project planning and management, and working with constraints and ill-defined problems.

The culture of innovation and creativity doesn't stop there. It is nurtured in and explored by our graduate students, who go on to be leaders in academia and research. It flourishes in our talented and accomplished alumni, who put what  they learned at Vanderbilt to work every day as engineers, industry leaders, and entrepreneurs. It is embodied in our outstanding faculty who constantly seek innovative solutions to problems and who are excited by possibilities.

Our design project structure is one area where the Vanderbilt School of Engineering differentiates itself from many of our peers. I trust you will enjoy reading about the work of our talented students. I am proud of them, our faculty and our industrial partners for creating such a robust and dynamic environment.

Best regards,

 

Philippe Fauchet
Dean