As I pointed out in another topic already, we at Delft University of Technology (Delft Aerospace) also suffered from a decreasing interest in the study of Aerospace Engineering a few years ago. Besides that the drop-out rate was way too high.
So both the appeal of the study had to be changed as had the curriculum. Not that it had too become easier, but more that the emphasis of the study had to shift more from being a pure technical, formulae business to a more industry related study. In other words:what does the industry expect of the graduated students?
Of course, the industry wants people with a sound technical background, but there's an increasing demand for people that have also learned to work together, that possess leadership and management skills and that know how to run a project.
So in Delft we carefully looked at the possibilities to incorporate these 'management' aspects in the study. It turned out that there were enormous opportunities to achieve this.
Nowadays the study in Delft is for a large part what is called 'project-based education '. During their study in aerospace engineering the students learn to put their theoretical knowlegde from the lectures into practice, thereby developing their management skills. The students work in small project-groups (8 to 10 persons) on a certain problem for some weeks and have to achieve some goals within this time. They are supported by the experts at our faculty, who are obliged to spend a number of hours per month on this support function. Also the aerospace industry is involved in these projects on a voluntary basis. They clearly see the advantage of getting better prepared students entering their companies after the study is finished and are thus willing to participate in their training by providing interesting cases that the students have to work on.
This concept really seems to work, because the motivation of the students is highly increased by giving them the responsibility to bring these projects to a good ending. Further, for them it is also fun, to have your own office, computers and running your 'own business' while working together with your fellow students.
The number of freshmen has increased dramatically over the past few years and is now reasonably stable. Unfortunately, I had already graduated when they switched to this project-based education, but as I have a job at the university now and then (to fill up the gaps during my flying training) I can clearly see the advantages over the old method of reading only books that used to be the practice in my time.
Maybe this helps you to figure out new ways to improve student involvement in their study and giving you as a lecturer more job-satisfaction. You can check our website on
www.delftaerospace.com for more information.