A MULTIDISCIPLINARY FINAL PROJECT IN CIVIL ENGINEERING. UEM EXPERIENCE

Real practice in Engineering Project development is tried to be implemented at the Civil Engineering Department of the Engineering School in UEM. Multidisciplinary teams have been defined to develop certain geographical areas by a complex, civil engineering project, where different constructions are inter-dependent. The student's project is made in two different phases. The first one is a Multidisciplinary Preliminary Project (which is the more innovative part). Each student becomes an "expert" in a particular civil engineering discipline involved in the Project. All together should study a number of choices for the different constructions in order to select the better in a global sense. The final choice in each discipline is later developed as a classic Construction Project in the second phase. As an example, one project may content a marina, including the coastal rehabilitation, the urban development with different road access and the corresponding structures, as a bridge, to cross a river. This new procedure for the final Project has many strengths but also weaknesses (many of them related to the practical implementation), offering a great chance for the student to learn in a global way, in the authors' opinion, than using the classic procedure.