Global Journal of Engineering Education, cilt.17, sa.3, ss.132-137, 2015 (Scopus)
A senior design course should provide engineering students the opportunity to solve real-world problems. As such, it is, a part of the curriculum of most engineering programmes worldwide, including the curriculum of the Industrial and Management Systems Engineering (IMSE) programme at Kuwait University (KU), which is an ABET (the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology) accredited programme. The senior design course of the IMSE programme at KU is unique and effective. In particular, at the stage of problem identification, students identify problems as opposed to the common practice of faculty members identifying them. In this article, four questions are addressed; how an organisation is selected, how a problem is identified, how the senior design course outcomes map to the ABET student outcomes and how a project is evaluated. The answers to the four questions are provided as a result of the author's experience of teaching the senior design course in the IMSE programme for more than a decade. Important factors to discern in selecting an organisation are stated and essential aspects to observe in identifying a problem in the organisation are specified. Programmes from other universities may benefit from the lessons learned.