Educational Policy

Education Policies of the Kyoto University Faculty of Engineering

With understanding the importance of fundamental researches, the Faculty of Engineering strives to cultivate students’ ability to make advancements in science and technology that are in balance with the natural environment, demonstrate their highly-professional expertise with creative strengths, and possess a well-rounded liberal arts education coupled with strong ethical integrity. For this purpose, our Faculty takes the following approaches to education:

1. The Liberal Arts and General Education Courses ensure students master theoretical principles in the natural sciences and the humanities and social sciences that will form a foundation for their completion of study in the professional courses.

2. The Faculty implements a curriculum designed to train students to rigorously identify and understand natural phenomena firsthand without relying on preconceived notions.

3. The Faculty implements professional education courses designed to foster in students the enthusiasm and vitality to innovatively pioneer new frontiers.

4. The Faculty implements a curriculum designed to develop excellent human talent with a well-rounded education, rigorous ethical integrity, and the ability to demonstrate leadership in an international setting.

5. Through the Special Research project (Graduation Research), students acquire experience and skills in basic and applied, cutting-edge research under the guidance of their supervisors and through dialogue with graduate students.

 

Here is an explanation of educational content common across all the Undergraduate Schools of the Faculty of Engineering. Students that enroll in the Faculty of Engineering’s undergraduate program spend their first and second years taking general liberal arts and sciences courses, courses in English and other foreign languages, and foundational education courses common to all students enrolled in science/engineering programs. Furthermore, specialized education specific to each undergraduate school and undergraduate course program also begins in the first year, and assumes heavier emphasis steadily over time. In their fourth year, students are assigned to a laboratory and pursue an individual research project in the Special Research (Graduation Research) course. This enables them to gain opportunities to engage in cutting-edge research together with graduate students and supervisors.

The content of the courses offered over this four-year curriculum, together with the methods of evaluating their learning outcomes through regular examinations and reports, are stated clearly, course by course, in the syllabus. Moreover, the order in which courses are to be taken is indicated in Course Trees for each School, which set out the inter-relationship and order of taking courses in accordance with the School’s curriculum policies. Students use these Course Trees to select courses appropriate to their learning progress and earn the prescribed course credits.

Through this educational approach, the Faculty of Engineering has produced human resources equipped with a rich knowledge base, rigorous ethical integrity, the ability to apply their knowledge on a broad scale, and the independence and creativity to boldly take on completely new and unknown themes.

 

Education Policies of Each School

The Undergraduate School of Civil, Environmental and Resources Engineering

Education Policies of Each School The Undergraduate School of Civil, Environmental and Resources Engineering “Civil, Environmental and Resources Engineering” aims to establish a new mode of civilization based on a global view which empathizes conservation of our planet’s environment and communities, and advancement of civilization. Our undergraduate school comprises programs in civil engineering, earth resources and energy engineering, and environmental engineering. Students in civil engineering study subjects such as structural mechanics, hydraulics, soil mechanics and infrastructure planning, and acquire knowledge in disaster mitigation and social capital development to support everyday lives. Students in earth resources and energy engineering acquire knowledge in the procurement and use of resources and energy through studies of subjects including engineering geology, exploration geophysics, rock engineering and plasticity. Students in environmental engineering study environmental health, water quality engineering, waste management engineering and global environmental engineering, and acquire technologies for environmental improvement and knowledge for the purpose of creating a recycling-oriented society. In case of civil engineering, many English lecture courses are offered with the aim of cultivating international views, and students from many different countries are thus able to study alongside Japanese students.

 

The Undergraduate School of Architecture

In terms of study focus and research methodology, the curriculum of the Undergraduate School of Architecture may be broadly classified into three areas: Planning, Structural Engineering, and Environmental Engineering. In order to become an architect or architectural engineer, students are expected to acquire knowledge of the techniques and underlying principles in each of these areas. The curriculum begins with relatively fundamental topics and gradually becomes more specialized, allowing each student to select a course of study in accordance with their personal interests and abilities.

 

The Undergraduate School of Engineering Science

The first year of the curriculum involves acquiring an overview and fundamental knowledge of engineering science, while also studying a broad variety of liberal arts and sciences ranging from humanities and social sciences to foreign languages and natural sciences. Based on their preferences and grades at the end of the first year, students are assigned to one of the following Course Programs from the first semester of the second year: Mechanical and Systems Engineering, Materials Science, Nuclear Engineering, Applied Energy Science and Engineering, Aeronautics and Astronautics. Along the curricular progression prescribed by their Course Program, students undertake lectures, experiments/laboratory and practices/exercises to acquire knowledge from the fundamental to the applied levels in their field of specialization. In the fourth year, students are assigned to research labs to undertake a Special Research (Graduation Research) project, experiencing a state-of-the-art research environment at the same time as mastering methodologies and presentation skills for science and technology research. Through these curricular programs, students are cultivated to have the strong motivation to develop revolutionary next-generation machine systems, new materials, and energy systems as well as to extend their activity area even into outer space. In addition, graduates are expected to have the broad perspective and the ability to contribute to the advancement of a sustainable society; a rich spirit to employ engineering knowledge grounded in the study of physics in order to solve a variety of complex and multi-scale problems; the potential for leadership in their fields of specialization as engineers and researchers.

 

The Undergraduate School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering

Students in the Undergraduate School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering are requested to take fundamental courses in mathematics, physics, electromagnetism, electric circuits, electronic circuits and logic circuits, as well as programming. They proceed to specialized courses in line with their own preferences, in areas including power engineering, control engineering, communication engineering, semiconductor engineering, and computation engineering. Fundamental experiments in electronic engineering begin from the second and third years, in order that students acquire practical skills and knowledge as they conduct experiments and exercises across a wide range of fields, such as characterizing electronic materials, designing and producing electronic circuits, operating large motors, and designing logic circuits. In the fourth year, the final year, of the curriculum, students are assigned to laboratories, implementing graduation research and compiling the findings into a graduation thesis. These curricular programs produce top researchers and engineers who will lead research and development in various fields that can support the sustainable energy society and advanced information society.

 

The Undergraduate School of Informatics and Mathematical Science

The Undergraduate School of Informatics and Mathematical Science provides a broad-based education from fundamentals to applied domains. When they move to their second year of study, students are assigned to either the Applied Mathematics and Physics Course or the Computer Science Course. Applied Mathematics and Physics students attend classes on mathematics, physics and their applications, controls, and OR (operations research), while Computer Science students are offered classes in areas such as computer science, artificial intelligence, and data science, to acquire specialized knowledge. In addition, laboratory, exercise, and Special Research components are used to cultivate students’ capacity to utilize specialized knowledge, conduct analysis and modelling, and construct solutions to problems.

 

The Undergraduate School of Chemical Science and Technology

In the first year and the first half of the second year of the curriculum, students take Liberal Arts and General Education Courses in areas including natural sciences (mathematics and physics), foreign languages, and humanities and social sciences, developing the fundamental academic abilities essential for specialized education. In the latter half of the second year, they are divided into three Courses: Frontier Chemistry, Advanced Chemistry, and Chemical Process Engineering, undergoing education in accordance with their future field of specialization. Common classes offered across these three Courses enable students to take flexible, highly efficient classes. Students are also able to attain a high level of specialized knowledge over the four years leading to graduation, with specialized education commencing in part from the first year of the curriculum, and intensive experiment-based curriculum offered in the third year. In the fourth year, students are assigned to a research group in their field of specialization to undertake a Special Research (Graduation Research) project, acquiring the advanced expertise and methodologies essential for research activity. This extensive curriculum equips students with advanced professional expertise with creativity, together with a well-rounded liberal arts education and strong ethical integrity.

Diploma Conferral Policies of the Kyoto University Faculty of Engineering

The Faculty of Engineering awards the bachelor’s degree to students that, through attending for the prescribed number of years, earning the designated number of course credits, and undertaking Special Research (Graduation Research), are considered to have developed the basis for deploying the following knowledge and skills as research and engineering professionals.

  • Scientific knowledge of humankind, society, and nature; the ability to comprehend the public interest on that basis; a strong sense of human compassion; and the capacity to view natural phenomena from a broad global perspective.
  • Fundamental knowledge in specialized fields and powers of logical thinking rooted in that foundation
  • The ability to integrate knowledge and rationally explore approaches to the solution of problems in science and technology
  • The communication skills to understand and accept the views of others as well as appropriately articulate one’s own personal views

 

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