User uploaded custom header image
Carlos Castano, Ph.D.

Experiential learning allows students to apply classroom knowledge in a real-world setting. Employers value this and 94% believe internships are valuable in identifying future employees, according to a 2021 study by the National Association of Colleges and Employers.

Learning through doing

Students at the Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) College of Engineering have three options for experiential learning. One is a traditional internship with a second being cooperative education, known as co-ops, where students are placed with an employer and get paid to learn. The third experiential learning opportunity at the College of Engineering is Vertically Integrated Projects (VIP).

Guided by the VIP Consortium, VCU Engineering’s instance of the VIP program focuses on cross-disciplinary teams and giving students an opportunity to work with engineers outside their own discipline. The VIP teams might even have members outside the field of engineering. From STEM to the arts and humanities, students join faculty-led research teams instead of traditional, lecture-based classrooms. Mentored by faculty and graduate students, undergraduate VIP team members are directly involved in the research and innovation process, applying their knowledge and insights to unsolved problems.

New leadership

Carlos Castano, Ph.D., associate professor in the Department of Mechanical and Nuclear Engineering is the new VIP program director. Castano came to the United States from Colombia to further the knowledge in physics, chemistry and their application to engineering. A fascination with materials, mechanics and electronics led Castano to a Ph.D. in material science, a field at the intersection of engineering, chemistry and physics.

Joining the College of Engineering during the inception of the Medicines for All Institute, Castano worked with VCU Engineering’s Office of the Dean and Frank Gupon, Ph.D., Floyd D. Gottwald, Jr. Chair in Pharmaceutical Engineering and Chair in the Department of Chemical and Life Science Engineering. Part of Castano’s duties included roles with the Nanomaterials Characterization Core Center (NCC), and the Center for Rational Catalyst Synthesis, a National Science Foundation Center. This diverse engineering background and Castano’s experience working in industry prior to his Ph.D. made him a prime candidate to lead the VIP program, bringing his advocacy for interdisciplinary collaboration to students at the VCU College of Engineering.

“The hands-on experience philosophy at VCU is unlike that of other universities,” says Castano. “Take the NCC, for example. It has these multimillion dollar machines intended for research and traditionally only operated by facility scientists, but at VCU faculty, graduate and undergraduate students train undergraduates one-on-one. There is a strong spirit of collaboration and culture of learning by doing that flows well into the college’s VIP program.”

Below Castano shares his thoughts and plans for the VCU College of Engineering’s VIP program.

What does the VIP program mean to you? What opportunities do you want it to provide to students?

My teaching and research philosophy is that we all learn from different perspectives. No two of us are exactly the same, but hands-on experience allows students to choose the path of learning that works best for them.

Engineers work on very challenging problems. In a classroom, exercises designed for learning typically have one known answer by the instructor, but a single project can have multiple outcomes in the real world. Projects may converge on limited solutions if we approach broad problems from one discipline. When you involve people from multiple disciplines, however, there are many possible solutions and outcomes. That is the essence of collaboration and interdisciplinary work.

The VIP program is an opportunity to give students that experience as undergraduates, teaching them the importance of teamwork and communication with people outside your engineering specialty. To me, the VIP program is like a jumpstart for students looking to get involved in research that makes an impact on humanity and our world.

The VCU College of Engineering is focused on providing experiential learning and these hands-on opportunities to students. How do you see the VIP program supporting that goal?

The VCU College of Engineering focuses heavily on teaching labs and internship experience. Within the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, for example, many lecture classes have an associated lab teaching the application of theory. In the Department of Mechanical and Nuclear Engineering, internships are mandatory for all students.

However, when you’re working in a class lab, there’s an answer to that exercise because it’s a controlled learning experience. The professor knows how the lab must be solved. In real-world engineering work, no one knows the right answer. For every problem, teams of engineers must arrive at a solution together.

This is where internships and co-ops shine. Students go to work with an employer and are suddenly interacting with engineers, technicians, the marketing department, stakeholders, customers and a multitude of other groups that comprise an organization. It can be a big shock, but it’s better that shock comes before graduation, so a student is ready for their first job out of college.

In between labs and internships or co-ops, you have VIP. Undergraduates may enroll in the VIP program, choose a team and work with faculty and graduate students on a specific broad problem. The undergraduates are supported and mentored by faculty, who are also performing this work with the students to find solutions to a problem no one person has the answer to.

That’s the importance of the interdisciplinary nature of VIP. Working in a company, you might have a marketing department that is open to new ideas and helps develop product requirements that engineers can implement. Or an engineer might need to communicate their idea and work with graphic designers or a computer scientist to make a website for a product. 

Consider an electrical engineer developing a device with the help of a mechanical engineer. The electrical engineer may need to describe the movement of a mechanism as a purely mechanical process. The conversation between those two different engineers must include points of convergence in order to understand one another to work toward a solution.

These VIP projects bring students from all around VCU, so you get that same experience as an undergraduate with a directed research project mentored and supported by faculty and graduate students.

How best would a student take advantage of that VIP experience? How does somebody get started? How would a student go about finding or starting a VIP experience?

The best way for students to learn about VIP is to check the ongoing teams at vip.vcu.edu/teams. Once a potential team is identified, contact the faculty leader to learn more. Many VIP teams participate in campus outreach activities; a prime example will come during the VCU College of Engineering Capstone Design Expo, where several VIP projects will be featured. New outreach activities are planned to disseminate opportunities and provide in-depth information for students and faculty who want to initiate new teams. Participation in the VIP teams is a two-way relationship, where the student and the faculty meet before enrollment to discuss their expectations of the VIP team outcomes. The program’s philosophy is a long-term commitment where the student will enroll in either a one or two credit hour session, a minimum of four credits are required for VIP courses to count towards graduation. Please check with your academic advisor about the specific criteria needed in your program.

Categories General College
Tagged , ,