Junior Project Manager
It’s an alarming pattern—large
percentages of engineering students either drop out or switch to another major.
Studies suggest a
variety of reasons why this behavior has emerged, including the difficulty of
the coursework, feeling isolated by peers who are pursuing non-STEM degrees, a lack
of mentors or role models and inadequate preparation in high school.
To combat the number of STEM
students they’ve seen drop out or change majors after their freshmen year, two
engineering professors have come up with a plan to keep their younger students
invigorated—and caffeinated.
William Ristenpart and Tonya Kuhl are
professors and engineers at the University of California Davis. A few years
ago, Professor Kuhl had the idea to disassemble a coffeemaker for students in
order to display how its designers were able to succeed in brewing quality coffee.
The pair quickly realized that coffee
making would translate well to teaching engineering. For example, the
process of roasting coffee beans involves several investigatable chemical
reactions, and the push of hot water through the machine is a result of fluid
dynamics.
In 2012, eighteen students attended
a seminar called Design
of Coffee. Its goal was to serve as “a non-mathematical introduction to
chemical engineering.” By 2015, it had become the most popular elective course
at the university, with over 1,500 students enrolled. And it’s not hard to see
why! While being tasked with creating “the best cup of coffee using the least
amount of electrical energy,” students learn about reverse engineering, pH and
chemical reactions, mass transfer, and the balance of energy.
Due to the overwhelming popularity
of the course, what began as a humble seminar has resulted in the new UC Davis Coffee Center. The plan
for the 6,000-square-foot building includes specialized laboratories for
studying how water quality, packaging, and bean storage affect the quality of
coffee, as well as resources for researching the molecules responsible for the
taste of coffee, an experimental sensory lab and much more. With the help of a $250,000
pledge from Peet’s Coffee, the center is planning on further updates and
renovations and an inclusion of a Peet’s Coffee Pilot Roastery room. The center
is quite an upgrade from the typical classroom.
At the end of the Design of Coffee
course, students partake in a blind taste test, and grade their peers’
creations.
Now there’s a class you can’t sleep
through.
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