Clinic Program Anniversary
50 Written by KOREN WETMORE th the team advantage >>
Some Lessons Must Be Lived To Be Learned, and nothing teaches teamwork quite like Harvey Mudd College’s experiential learning opportunities. From coursework to summer research
projects and national competitions, students are encouraged to collaborate to achieve their goals. HMC’s Clinic Program, one of the College’s most important educational pro- grams, provides a true capstone experience. Handed a yearlong project, students are
tasked with delivering results on time, within budget and to specification. The experience stretches their skills and leads to new discover- ies, revealing as much—if not more—about team members as it does about the science. When finished, students will have mastered
the skills of peer review, group dynamics, col- laborative writing, presentation, communica- tion and the fine art of building relationships in the face of mind-boggling logistics and late-night labs. And, they’ll even have some fun along the way. Above all, students come to realize the
exponential power of working with others. “Clinic was a great platform for learning
to work in a team environment,” says Frances Ferris ’80, project engineer for The Boeing
“All of [the Clinic] activities helped to prepare me for my career in people management and problem solving in high-tech manufacturing.”
1986 2011 Working on a Clinic team positions students for future success
Company, who has worked with multiple teams to support 135 Space Shuttle missions. “The experience of working a compressed schedule while balancing priorities reflects the challenge I’ve had working in industry. It was much better to make a mistake in the college environment than in the workplace.”
the philosophy Real-World Experience within the safety of the College community lies at the heart of HMC’s Clinic Program. “Students are placed in teams for two rea-
sons,” says Engineering Clinic Director Erik Spjut. “First, because they will be working on teams for most of their professional careers, we want them to gain practice working on a team in a controlled environment where we can teach them how best to do it. Second, the scale of Clinic projects precludes them from being done by an individual, so a successful project requires a team to complete it.” Students work in groups of four or five un-
der the guidance of a student project manager (team leader), a faculty advisor and a liaison from the sponsoring organization. The liaison outlines the project requirements, approves the team’s proposal for accomplishing the work, and receives weekly progress reports. In most cases the student team visits the sponsoring company in the fall semester to learn about the technology or to give a design review to senior officials, then returns in May to present the final results.
1994 2010
General Dynamics 22
N2 Pops
WRAIR Har vey Mudd College SUMMER 2013
SEAmagine Hydrospace Corporation
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