Section 103 Group 6 Reviewing Group 1

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Group 1’s Project Proposal: Engineering C126/UGBA C126

To quickly summarize Group 1’s project, their idea was to propose an ethics class cross-listed between the engineering department and Haas. They brought up the good point that the College of Engineering is inconsistent in its ethics requirements for different majors, and therefore they suggest both making ethics courses a requirement throughout the entire college as well as creating an entirely new class devoted to teaching ethics across multiple disciplines.

Their idea is innovative and interesting – though proposing a new class is highly ambitious and difficult to implement at a large public school like Cal, their arguments were strong and they were very thorough in their written proposal. Their proposal letter was written reasonably, though they could have included more details and been more convincing. They included even a general future plan with goals, and went as far as to design a syllabus, clearly taking the best parts of E125 and incorporating them into this new course.

Some possible improvements might include having more concrete long-term goals and implementation plans in order to make this feat more possible, including some feedback regarding ethics courses that are currently available and arguing why this cross-listed version would be a beneficial addition, and garnering faculty and student support for this proposed class. Also, as mentioned earlier, the civic engagement portion of the project was significantly weaker than the first half of the written proposal. Their plan was fascinating and the syllabus was extremely creative and showed a great knowledge of ethics topics, but the letter fell slightly short. It was not as persuasive as it should have been to make their ideal course proposal an executable task, since it would likely take a very convincing letter and further proposals to convince the school to offer a completely new class when other ethics courses are available.

The presentation was well-prepared and interesting. We thought the group did a good job splitting up speaking time among its members and each member seemed to have a clear understanding of the goals and logistics of the proposal. We personally felt the presentation could have been a little more concise. Lots of times the people presenting used ‘like’ and ‘umm’ to take up time that they could have used to elaborate on the information. The PowerPoint was also wordy at times; it could be fixed by merely highlighting the main points to avoid too much text on a single slide. Aside from this, your group was thorough and detailed. Great job!

All in all, the proposal and presentation were very nuanced and unique, and we as a group enjoyed reading their plan and hearing what they had to say. We look forward to seeing their results!

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