The Smart City

Catalog description

This interdisciplinary course provides students with a "big picture" overview of the several engineering systems at work in our economy and society. The course is organized around the "smart city" because this umbrella topic allows students not only to explore multiple engineering systems in a single course but also to comprehend their connectivity. In other words, students will understand how a given engineering system functions not in isolation but in harmony with others. Towards this end, the course is structured around a handful of "mega themes": Cyber Engineering, Green Engineering Technology and Sustainability, Societal Systems Engineering, Living Systems Engineering, Cyber-Physical Ecosystems, and Physical and Digital Infrastructure. Though students may enter the course knowing almost nothing about a given mega theme, they will likely recognize familiar elements within it. That is because each mega theme encompasses the methods and knowledge bases of traditional fields: electrical, civil, computer, mechanical, and environmental engineering as well as biology, public policy, sociology, information systems, and homeland security, to name a few. After successfully completing this course, students will be able to explain how diverse engineering systems work in concert in cities; identify the major methods used in each of the major engineering areas (electrical, mechanical, civil, etc.); analyze interdisciplinary scholarship in engineering; explain how scholars deploy methods and knowledge bases from two or more fields to solve problems in engineering; apply this knowledge by designing an interdisciplinary research project; and communicate a research plan clearly and effectively through a written proposal and oral presentation.