Educating XXIst century civil engineers in Barcelona

Abstract

The educational programs of Civil Engineering schools have evolved to adapt to changes in society demands and regulations. Specifically, Civil Engineering curricula in Spain was highly impacted by the Bolonia Declaration as the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) was launched to promote homogeneous Civil Engineering programs in all European countries. Moreover, in the last years, the construction crisis has changed significantly the Civil Engineering profession panorama in Spain. This scenario has reduced significantly the demand for studying in Civil Engineering Schools. These are forced, for the first time, to attract students. Furthermore, the world economy has been globalized and construction has been industrialized. This asks for professionals able to work worldwide and with new capabilities. To face these new challenges, the School of Civil Engineering of Barcelona (ETSECCPB) considered the EHEA modifications as an opportunity to reinvent itself to become more attractive for students and more useful to society. This paper will show which are the paths chosen to shift from a teacher to a student centered education and how the communication of the School has improved. Specific examples will be given (flipped classroom, project based learning, Massive Open Online Course-MOOCs, workshops) focusing not only on the results, but also on the challenges that were overcome in order to educate professionals able to excel in a worldwide market.