Clackamas Community College · Fall 2026 · Section 01 · 3 credits · Online, live sessions
Instructor: Dr. Scher · aaron.scher@clackamas.edu
Class meetings: Monday and Wednesday, 8:30 to 9:50 AM Pacific, on Zoom. The Zoom link is in Moodle. First session Monday, September 28. Final session Wednesday, December 9, 8:00 to 9:50 (note the earlier start).
Office hours: Monday and Wednesday, 9:50 to 10:20 AM Pacific, by appointment. Email me before class and I will stay on the class Zoom after the session. When class ends early, I stay on until 9:50 for anyone with questions, no appointment needed.
Prerequisite or corequisite: MTH-111Z or higher.
Catalog description. Introduction to the basic ideas and tools of the engineering profession. An exploration of career and education options within the field, and the skills needed to achieve career goals. Methods of engineering analysis, design, and problem solving culminating in a design project. The class will cover all facets of engineering design, including background research, requirement specification and prioritization, development, prototype construction, testing, and evaluation for future redesigns.
Upon completion of this course, you will be able to:
Landis, Peuker, and Mott, Studying Engineering: A Road Map to a Rewarding Career, 5th edition, Discovery Press. E-book on RedShelf. The 4th edition will also work. The reading list refers to the 5th edition.
Monday is a lecture. Wednesday is a short lecture and then in-class work in small breakout rooms; each of you submits the group’s answer in Moodle. Cameras are encouraged, especially in breakout rooms; if yours is off, please put a photo on your Zoom profile so the tile isn’t blank.
No recording. I don’t record sessions: I ask questions during the lecture and the real work happens in the breakout rooms, and neither works well when people know they’re being recorded. Don’t record the class yourself without asking me first; if you have a DRC accommodation that involves recording, you don’t need to ask.
The project runs the whole term, on a topic you choose. It is the largest part of your grade. See The Project.
| Component | Count | Each | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| Homework 1 to 6 | 6 | 25 | 150 |
| Conversation Assignments 1 and 2 | 2 | 50 | 100 |
| In-Class Work 1 to 8 | 8 | 25 | 200 |
| Measure and Plot Assignment 1 | 1 | 50 | 50 |
| Final paper: Design Your Process | 1 | 100 | 100 |
| Project: Topic (25), Proposal (125), Presentation and Demo (125), Final Report (125) | 4 | 400 | |
| Total | 1000 |
Letter grades: A 900 and above · B 800 to 899 · C 700 to 799 · D 600 to 699 · F below 600.
Every in-class work counts; nothing is dropped. There are no quizzes or exams.
How assignments are graded. Homework and in-class work are graded on the quality of your thinking and on good-faith effort. I want to see that you are engaging with the material and learning from it: answers at the college level, backed up by your reading, your numbers, or your reasoning. Work that is thin gets partial credit: questions skipped, a list with nothing behind it, or a post that could have been written without doing the reading or the activity.
In-class work is done in groups during the session. The group agrees on one answer and every member submits that same answer, with everyone’s names on it. I expect every member of the group to contribute. Everyone in the group gets the same score; if you do not submit, you get no credit for that session. Times given for in-class work are approximate; I set the clock in the session. Some days we come back together after the rooms close and go through the answers; I will tell you in the session whether we are doing that, so be ready to speak for your group. In-class work cannot be made up, because it is group work done live; that is the attendance policy.
The two Conversation Assignments (the adviser meeting and the informational interview) are worth more and have one extra rule: no meeting, no credit.
The project pieces and the final paper are graded on the rubric shown with each one.
Late work. Work up to a week late loses 20%. After a week, it’s a zero. After the term is over, it’s a zero; I will not grade anything after the term ends. You don’t need to tell me why something is late.
Three things work differently. In-class work: the box closes for good the night after the session, because it is group work done live. The presentation: your slot is your slot. The final report: the due date is final, because grades are due. One consequence worth knowing: a late proposal follows the normal rule, but my feedback on it will not be back in time for the checkpoint session.
You can use AI tools in this course. Use them the way you would use a good tutor or a sharp friend: to research, to bounce ideas around, to figure out what you actually think, and to turn what you think into clear, correct sentences.
Two rules.
The work is yours. What you give the tool comes from your own thinking, your own measurements, your own conversations, and what you submit says what you actually think. I grade your work, not the tool’s. Points will be deducted if a submission reads like something a tool wrote and you passed along without checking, editing, and making it your own, or if it does not reflect your own work.
You are responsible for the output. Whatever you submit represents what you think and what you are claiming, no matter which tool helped you write it. “The AI gave me that answer” is not an excuse. Read what it gives you. Check it. It invents facts, it gets arithmetic and units wrong, and it will describe an object it has never seen. If a mistake it made ends up in your submission, it is your mistake.
Some assignments only work if you do the real thing: measure it yourself, talk to the actual person, look at the object in your hand, build the thing. No tool can do those for you.
If you used AI on an assignment, add one line at the end saying how, treating it the way you would cite a source. Saying so never costs points (the two rules above still apply either way). Not saying so, when it is obvious or an AI check flags it, can cost points.
Everyone in this course agrees to three things:
Everything you submit for credit is your own work. Study together, argue about the problems, help each other: that is encouraged, and the in-class work is built on it. The line is copying. Turning in another student’s work, or handing yours to someone else to turn in, is copying, and both people get a zero for that assignment. So is turning in something a tool wrote and you passed along; see Using AI above.
Anything beyond that is covered by CCC’s Student Code of Conduct, which defines academic misconduct as “actual or attempted fraud, deceit, or unauthorized use of materials prohibited or inappropriate in the context of the academic assignment.” If the work is yours, it will never come up.
Lectures are numbered by session; the Wednesdays without a lecture are in-class work only. Assignments are due at 11:59 PM Pacific on the day shown. Submit your in-class work before the session ends; the box stays open until 11:59 PM that night in case your room runs long. Presentations run across three sessions, November 30, December 2, and December 9; the groups are assigned in Moodle.
This schedule and syllabus are subject to revision at the instructor’s discretion; changes are announced in Moodle.