On the Perspectives of Graduated Engineering Students on Three Dimensions of the Integrated Curriculum from a Peruvian University

Abstract

The integrated curriculum is made up of five dimensions: knowledge, internships, counseling, the arts and sports and research. The University of Sciences and Humanities (in Spanish: Universidad de Ciencias y Humanidades; UCH) from Lima, Peru at the core of the curricula of their different faculties follows the integrated training model in order to shape ideal professionals. In order to gain an insight into how the faculty from science and engineering at the UCH is handling three dimensions (internships, the arts and sports and research) of the integrated training model, a survey was carried out among graduated students from the electronic engineering and computer science programs. We could discover that overall, there is a good degree of satisfaction among the electronic engineering graduates with all the three aforementioned dimensions. However, in the case of the computer science graduates a discrepancy with regard to these three dimensions could be observed. In view of these results, a new survey is planned to shed more light into the difference of the perpectives among these two groups. On the other hand considering the obtained results, we suggest (and it is already planned) that the faculty of science and engineering from the UCH gives more internships opportunities to their current students, and also intensifies the research dimension, for instance, with the implementation of hotbeds of research. This will further benefit the students to become better professionals and also will support the faculty of science and engineering from the UCH when looking for accreditation of its two programs with the Latin American accreditation agency ICACIT.