BEng Thesis 4 (Civil & Environmental Engineering) (U00437)

? Credit Points : 40 ? SCQF Level : 10 ? Acronym : EEL-4-CVTHS

Every student is required to submit an individually written thesis on a research, review or design project by the end of the honours year. The honours thesis is an opportunity for the student to undertake an original study of a challenging engineering problem. It is intended to advance knowledge and most topics are topical research projects, based on the research activity of the supervising member of staff. It is the student's greatest opportunity to show individual intelligence, enterprise, ability, vigour and an aptitude for engineering excellence in a forthcoming career. Students are encouraged to undertake the study of a topic in pairs. This provides them with the opportunity to expand their skills in cooperation and task division, which is a normal feature of engineering activity. It also permits them to make considerably more progress in studying a challenging problem, and ensures that they have generated a significant amount of new knowledge by the end which they must present coherently without being able to find it described in published literature. Each student must write their own individual thesis.

Entry Requirements

? Pre-requisites : Only open to BEng students in the discipline of Civil and Environmental Engineering

Subject Areas

Home subject area

Civil, (School of Engineering and Electronics, Schedule M)

Delivery Information

? Normal year taken : 4th year

? Delivery Period : Full Year (Blocks 1-4)

? Contact Teaching Time : 1 hour(s) per week for 20 weeks

Summary of Intended Learning Outcomes

This course is intended to:
- deepen the student's understanding of an area of knowledge which holds special interest for him or her;
- strengthen the student's ability to undertake autonomous engineering work on subjects of which he or she has been taught little;
- increase the student's confidence that he or she can tackle any reasonable problem within his or her speciality in civil engineering;
- develop skills in the oral presentation of individual work, including explaining the nature of the problem to academic staff who have no special knowledge of the topic;
- develop skills in the preparation of a large report: structured writing, presentation of information in a variety of ways; - critical appraisal of data and the drawing of appropriate conclusions from it;
- develop skills in the defence of a body of work which the student has undertaken in front of critical assessors.