Location and inquiries

The Faculty of Engineering is located at City campus, Broadway, in Buildings 1 and 2. Main locations are:

• CB02.7.093
  Dean, Faculty Manager, Undergraduate and Postgraduate Office, Industry Partnering Unit, International and Enterprise Development Office, and Women in Engineering program
• CB02.4.16
  Engineering Outreach Office
• CB01.24.27
  Associate Dean, Teaching and Learning
• CB02.7.078
  Associate Dean, International and Enterprise Development
• CB02.612.B
  Associate Dean, Research and Development

Location of facilities

• Learning and design centres (CB01.25 and CB02.6)
• National Centre for Groundwater Management (CB10.11.18)

Engineering Outreach Office

The Engineering Outreach Office deals with all prospective student inquiries and is located at CB02.4.16. This connects with Building 1 at City campus, Broadway. The postal address is:

The Engineering Outreach Office is generally open from:

Monday to Friday, 9 a.m. – 5 p.m.

Voicemail, fax or email contact may be made at any time.

Undergraduate and Postgraduate Office

The Undergraduate and Postgraduate Office (UPO) deals with all current student inquiries and is located at CB02.7.100. This connects with Building 1 at City campus, Broadway. The postal address is:

The UPO is generally open from:

except for the first two weeks of January and the first two weeks of semester when hours vary. Details are available on:

Voicemail, fax or email contact may be made at any time.

All current student inquiries, except for postgraduate courses in Groundwater Management, should be made through the UPO.

For courses in Groundwater Management, contact:

Director, Postgraduate Coursework Program

Manager, Postgraduate Coursework Program

History of the Faculty

The Faculty began teaching in 1965 as part of a new institute, soon to become the New South Wales Institute of Technology (NSWIT). In 1987, by Act of the Parliament of New South Wales, NSWIT was reconstituted as the University of Technology, Sydney, and commenced operation as UTS in January 1988. During 1988 and 1989, UTS amalgamated with several other institutions and parts of institutions, and the 'new UTS' came into being in its present form in 1990. None of the University's new partners had engineering schools, and so the Faculty of Engineering has continued in essentially the same form since its inception.

The first courses offered led to the award of Diploma in Technology. These were extended to Bachelor of Engineering level in 1971, and the diploma courses gradually phased out. The first Bachelor of Engineering degrees were awarded in 1972. Programs leading to Master of Engineering by coursework and by research were offered in 1975. The degree of Doctor of Philosophy by research was made available in 1986, initially by arrangement with another university and, from 1988, by UTS in its own right.

In 2004, the Faculty has some 3,000 undergraduate students and 900 postgraduate students. Of the latter, over 140 are candidates for higher degrees by research, and over 750 are enrolled for postgraduate awards by coursework.

Structure of the Faculty

The Faculty is not subdivided into departments or other entities, but functions on an integrated basis.

Each member of academic and general staff belongs to a Staff Group, reflecting his or her professional interests and expertise. The Group titles are:

• Infrastructure and the Environment
• Mechatronics and Intelligent Systems
• Information and Communication
• Management, Policy and Practice
• Technical Support
• Administrative Support.

The Faculty's governing body is the Faculty Board in Engineering. There is an Executive Committee, a Dean's Advisory Committee, a Teaching and Educational Development Committee, a Research Degrees Committee, and a Research Management Committee. There is also an Industry Advisory Committee with membership drawn from industry, the profession and the community.

In addition, the Faculty is represented on most of the University's boards and committees.

Institutes of UTS

The Faculty interacts closely with the following institutes at UTS:

• Institute for Interactive Media and Learning
• Institute for International Studies
• Institute for Sustainable Futures
• Institute for Information and Communication Technologies
• Institute for Water and Environmental Resource Management
• Institute for Nanoscale Technology

Further details of all these centres, institutes and other organisations are published in the UTS: Calendar.

Practice-based engineering education

What does it mean?

Engineering is about devising ways in which technology can contribute to human ends, and about developing, delivering and maintaining technical systems that do so. The practice of engineering is about doing this reliably and cost-effectively, in the context of real social and economic objectives and pressures, and in a variety of business and community settings. It embraces many technical and non-technical factors that cannot be replicated in the classroom, including the need to understand and interact with a wide range of people and perspectives as well as to deal with new or unexpected technical issues and with uncertainty and risk. It should recognise the fundamental need to ensure a sustainable future.

Education for professional engineering must include a strong intellectual training, and a strong grounding in engineering science. But over-concentration on engineering science can impart a narrow technical mindset, and an education that is exclusively academic can be remote from reality. Either of these can cause graduates serious difficulty later in coming to grips with the human aspects of engineering and with the demands of practice.

Practice-based engineering education requires students to experience the reality of engineering internship from an early stage in their professional formation. It actively relates this experience to their developing understanding of engineering theory, analysis and laboratory work, and to studies in other disciplines, and it promotes critical and creative thinking based on knowledge gained outside as well as within the University. This interaction requires that most academic staff themselves have significant experience of engineering internship, and keep it constantly refreshed. Educational programs in which either students or a majority of staff do not have current experience of practice cannot validly be called practice-based.

Practice-based education is more than practice, and more than education. A university education should impart a thorough grasp of fundamental principles, a respect for knowledge, a capacity for critical inquiry and lateral thinking, a fluency in communication, a pride in excellence, and an eagerness to contribute to shaping the future. Practice-based engineering education claims that these attributes can be more effective when they have been developed in contact with the human and technical challenge of real engineering situations.

Engineering education at UTS

In Australia, the basic qualification for professional engineering is the Bachelor of Engineering degree (BE). At most universities the BE occupies four years of full-time academic study. At UTS, as well as completing the academic program, all undergraduate engineering students must gain substantial approved engineering experience in industry, or in other authentic professional settings. This experience must be distributed over the period of the course and must meet standards of level, quality and relevance. This experience is recognised in the award of a Diploma in Engineering Practice (DipEngPrac). The combined BE DipEngPrac degree takes five years to complete.

Graduates of most university engineering courses need up to two years' experience in industry, after graduation, before they are able to assume real responsibility. UTS Engineering graduates have already gained much of this experience, together with a real understanding of the interrelations between theory and practice, technology and human factors. They are equipped to undertake professional responsibility much sooner than graduates of other courses at other universities – often immediately upon graduating.

The combination of formal academic learning in the University and experiential learning in the workplace is called Cooperative Education. UTS Engineering courses have embodied this principle for over 30 years. The courses have been highly regarded in industry and according to many reports and surveys, the graduates enjoy the highest employment rate of any engineering degree courses in Australia. UTS Engineering is by far the largest Cooperative Education faculty in Australia, in any discipline. Cooperative Education is also well known and highly regarded in other countries, particularly in North America. UTS is a member of the World Council for Cooperative Education.

The BE program has recently been completely redesigned. It retains the Cooperative Education requirement for substantial work experience, but now goes much further. It extends the concept of practice-based engineering education into one of total professional formation, and leads to the combined award of Bachelor of Engineering, Diploma in Engineering Practice (BE DipEngPrac). Details appear in the relevant section of this handbook.

Other UTS Engineering courses, undergraduate and postgraduate, are also designed to interact strongly with industry, though the work-experience requirements are mostly less structured than those of the BE DipEngPrac. In all programs, the majority of students already have significant industrial experience, or are gaining it concurrently. The Faculty has policies for maximising opportunity for its academic staff to maintain first-hand experience in industry, and engages many practising engineers as adjunct teaching staff. It also strongly encourages collaborative research and consultancy with industry, and many of its research students are industry based. The predominant culture, therefore, is strongly practice oriented, and this also benefits the relatively small number of students who do not yet have engineering work experience.

The Faculty is actively exploring the new paradigms of work-based learning now developing in several countries, and has recently introduced a work-based learning program.

In all of its activities the Faculty seeks to promote better understanding of the role of engineering in society, and to promote and support service to the community through other channels as well as industry.

Women in Engineering program

While women engineers continue to make a valuable contribution to the profession and practice of engineering in Australia, their representation in the field is low. The rate of participation by women in engineering courses nationally averages just under 16 per cent.

The Women in Engineering program was established at UTS to attract more women into its undergraduate program by communicating a broadened conception of engineering to secondary students. This led to the development of curriculum resources on teaching technology for girls.

The program has strongly influenced the philosophy of engineering at UTS, and has been a catalyst for many innovations in the Bachelor of Engineering, Diploma in Engineering Practice curriculum introduced in 1998.

The program has been recognised for its inauguration of the Annual Australasian Women in Engineering Forum, its initiatives in curriculum development, and its contributions to the ground-breaking National Review of Engineering Education, which laid a strong emphasis on the need for culture change.

The program now uses a variety of creative approaches to communicate with schools and engage the interests and capabilities of young women, including the Sydney Women in Engineering and Information Technology (SWIEIT) Speakers Program, which is jointly sponsored by UTS, IBM and Telstra. It has attracted Women in Engineering Scholarships for first-year and senior undergraduates from professional organisations in the construction and business sectors – including the National Association of Women in Construction (NAWIC) and ZONTA – and is also active in the annual International Institute of Women in Engineering (IIWE) in Paris, in which staff and students work on an intensive summer program of international engineering practice.

In addition to outreach and scholarships, the Women in Engineering program coordinates the support and mentoring of women students by alumni and leaders in the profession and industry, and seeks opportunities for student-led projects on community, equity and sustainability-based concerns.

The Faculty strongly welcomes women students and invites their contribution to ensuring an inclusive teaching and learning environment. Through the subjects which preview and debrief industrial internship, all students can contribute their insights into workplace cultures in engineering. The Faculty also supports broader cultural and equity initiatives which better enable women graduates to fulfil their potential as future engineering and management professionals and as researchers and engineering academics.

Professional bodies in Engineering

The Institution of Engineers, Australia

The Institution of Engineers, Australia (IEAust) is the principal professional engineering body and learned society in Australia. Its membership covers all branches of engineering, with specialist colleges catering for the main fields of practice. Its headquarters is located in Canberra, with operating divisions in capital cities and regional centres. The local division for UTS is Sydney Division, which runs an annual program of lectures, seminars and professional activities, with particular events for Young Engineers. Its offices are located in North Sydney, and can be contacted on telephone +61 2 9929 8544.

Corporate membership of IEAust (in the grades of Member or Fellow) confers the status of Chartered Engineer and provides a listing in the National Professional Engineers Register. Students enrolled in courses leading to the Bachelor of Engineering degree may join IEAust as Student members, and upon graduation become eligible for Graduate membership. To attain the corporate grade of Member, certain professional competencies must be gained and demonstrated, normally in employment after graduation. UTS graduates may expect to receive credit towards this requirement for the industrial experience gained during their degree, although some further experience is normally needed.

IEAust membership is also available in the categories of Engineering Associate (normally holding a TAFE Associate Diploma or equivalent) and Engineering Technologist (normally holding a Bachelor of Technology degree or an Advanced Diploma).

IEAust assesses degree courses conducted by Australian universities, and may recognise them as meeting its educational requirements for membership. Accreditation of Engineering courses and subjects is carried out on a five-yearly cycle. The most recent accreditation cycle for UTS and hence confirmation of its programs occurred in 2003. Full details of all accredited programs are available through IEAust.

IEAust also manages the National Professional Engineers Register (NPER-3), which is the only Australian register of practising professional engineers with legal recognition. Registration assures the community of the member's professional competence and commitment to ethical practice, may be cited in relation to quality assurance systems, and (particularly in New South Wales) can provide legally established professional limitation of liability. Professional engineers normally join the register concurrently with their recognition as a Chartered Member of the Institution (CPEng).

A candidate for NPER-3 registration must have completed an accredited undergraduate engineering course, have practised as an engineer, and be able to demonstrate competency against the Institution's competency standards. These are detailed under 11 headings: ethics and principles; practice skills; planning and design; business and management; communication; research, development and commercialisation; materials or components; education and training; manufacturing and production; project implementation; and asset management.

Graduates of full-time engineering degree courses at other universities, without work experience, typically require three or more years of work experience after graduation to attain NPER-3. UTS Engineering graduates are able to apply to IEAust for recognition of their undergraduate work experience towards professional registration.

The Association of Professional Engineers, Scientists and Managers, Australia

The Association of Professional Engineers, Scientists and Managers, Australia (APESMA) provides advice and assistance on employment-related matters for professional engineers, scientists and managers. Student members receive the publication The Student Update three times per year which gives practical insight into the workplace and employment issues that affect them as professional engineers. For information and student membership application forms, contact APESMA on telephone +61 2 9264 9500.

Other bodies

There are a number of other national and regional associations representing particular branches of engineering. Faculty staff with interests in the field concerned are often active in these bodies, and glad to provide information.

Engineering Learning and Design Centres

The Faculty has a strong commitment to providing an effective and supportive learning environment for Engineering students. The Learning and Design Centres are located at CB01.25.15 and CB02.6.39. They serve students by providing access to tutors for individual and small group support, reference material, and software and hardware resources, on a drop-in basis, and are open for extended hours.

Engineering clubs and societies

The Faculty has an active student society – SECSME (Society of Electrical, Environmental, Civil, Computer Systems, Construction, Structural, Software and Mechanical Engineers) – with over 500 members. SECSME supports both an active social calendar as well as various professional events, and was awarded the UTS Activities Club of the Year in 2000. For more information see:

Additional English language requirements

The Faculty may require those students who are identified as needing additional English language preparation to undertake a preparatory English language course.

Other information

The Faculty publishes a Course Guide at the beginning of each academic year, which is available from the Undergraduate and Postgraduate Office, CB02.7.100. The Faculty's website gives current information on all aspects of the Faculty's operations: