Professional Self-Assessment Report-Purpose and Expectations

Fall, 2002

Individual Report- One per student

Required

Report Due: Friday, Dec. 6

Purpose

By preparing this professional self-assessment report, students will document and evaluate their learning in this course and begin to prepare themselves for the next stage in their professional growth. They will accomplish this by reflecting on-and responding to-the following questions:

1. How have I satisfied the learning objectives in this course and contributed to team and course outcomes? Cite each learning objective and refer to examples throughout the term. The course learning objectives were listed on the course syllabus distributed the first week of class.
2. What have I learned about the design process from my work on the design project. Restate your portion of the overall project as define in your team's design proposal, which was developed and completed in week 6 of the semester. Describe your work during the semester on your portion of the design project. In your write-up discuss your work in terms of the overall engineering design process- e.g., project justification, identification of constraints, establishment of design criteria, establishment of timetables, the partitioning of work, project monitoring, and project evaluation. Also discuss your work in terms of design iterations that occurred during the semester.
3. What technical communications have I done this semester? List the reports and presentations you have help prepare. Also indicate those presentations for which you were a speaker.
4. What is the impact of this course on my career objectives and professional goals?
5. What are my primary strengths and weaknesses?
6. Where would I like to be professionally five years after graduation?
7. What lifelong-learning steps must I plan to undertake in order to achieve this five-year professional goal?

Expectations for this Report

Each individual in the class must prepare his/her own professional self-assessment report. While the report must address the seven questions posed above, it might also address other issues as well. For example, the implication in the seventh question is that learning more will be the key to achieving a professional goal. However, there might be other impediments; e.g., family or financial considerations that must be addressed or changes might have to be made in personal lifestyle in order to fulfill the five-year professional goal.

Additional expectations for this report include the following:

1. The report should be broken into two parts: the main body of the report (i.e., responses to the seven questions) and an appendix. The responses should be written as complete sentences, etc.
2. The appendix should contain the student's resume.
3. The body of the report should be approximately four to five pages in length. However, this should only be viewed as a guide since some individuals may want to expound more on their learning and professional plans.