Improving the Undergraduate IEOR Programs at Columbia University

哥伦比亚大学工业工程与运筹学(IEOR)系正在重新调整其本科课程，以更好地满足寻求进入市场的本科生的需求，并更好地为寻求研究职业的本科生服务。这项计划拨款的两个主要组成部分是重新设计工程管理科学课程和引入本科水平的金融工程课程。这些课程的一个关键部分是将服务学习项目作为其课程的一部分。这些项目是在校园内一个现有的社区服务组织的帮助下确定的，该组织致力于为拉美裔和非裔美国人提供服务。服务性学习项目由一到两名高年级学生和几名新生组成的团队进行。大四学生有机会应用所学知识并锻炼领导技能，而大一学生则学习如何与不同的团队合作，并从大四学生的知识和经验中受益。拟议的活动涉及一系列需要改进的重要领域，包括在内容(财务、管理、研究)和教学创新(服务学习、聚焦现实世界问题、主动学习)方面的课程改进。该项目的总体好处将是改善学生为他们未来在社会中的角色做准备，增加这些角色的多样性，并提高代表不足的群体在教育中的参与率。

The Industrial Engineering and Operations research (IEOR) department at Columbia University is reshaping its undergraduate curricula to better serve the needs of undergraduates seeking to enter the marketplace and to better serve undergraduates seeking to pursue a research career. Two major components of this planning grant are the redesign of the Engineering Management Science curriculum and the introduction of an undergraduate level Financial Engineering program. A critical part of these courses is the use of service learning projects as part of their curriculum. These projects are being identified with the help of an existing community service organization on campus engaged in serving Hispanic and African American populations. Service learning projects are being carried out by teams consisting of one or two senior students and a few freshmen students. Senior students have the opportunity to apply what they have learned and exercise leadership skills, while freshman students learn to work with heterogeneous teams and benefit from the knowledge and experience of the older students. The proposed activity addresses a range of important areas for improvement including curriculum improvement with respect to both content (finance, management, research) and pedagogical innovation (service learning, real-world problem focused, active learning). The overall benefits of the project would be to improve students' preparation for their future roles in society, to increase the diversity of those roles and to increase participation rates of underrepresented groups in the education.