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24 Ş.HELVACIOĞLU

engineer is not complete until he/she goes to the industry (Ratnajeevan, 1991). Design is one of
the most important subjects in engineering education and it requires experience and lecturers are
usually not very well equipped for this. Industry based design teaching is necessary for a good
engineering education.

There will be substantial changes in educational content and structure as the profession develops
(Woods, 2006). Engineering education is becoming more and more important as well as
challenging. Several universities have been working to improve their education systems (Woods,
2006, Woud et al., 2006, etc.). Some universities have aimed to prepare their students for "the
real world", which is full of inconsistencies, complex, and changes all the time. The real world
also involves participants from different domains with political and cultural aspects. To meet this
challenge, a project based on real examples from industry may be done, or obstacles and dirty
tricks in student exercises may be introduced (van Vliet, 2005).

It is always necessary to investigate and adopt the impact of new technologies on the education
system with educational training and professional development meeting the changing needs of
the industry (Woud et al., 2006). A university continuously learns and transforms itself to respond
and adapt to changing environmental conditions (Psarianos, 2006).

Today, another challenge of engineering education is weak relations between universities and
industry, where it is important to improve communication and representation skills. Most of the
American and Canadian schools require a course in technical communication, because many
organizations fail to communicate effectively (Ales and Tuttle, 2006). It is frequently believed
that the most important communication line is associated with the company customers.
Nevertheless, the internal communication of a company departments, divisions or employees will
enable the effective and efficient production of goods or services (Psarianos, 2006). The work as
a team in SDP improves students and lecturers communication skills. On the other hand, lecturers
and students work with people from real design offices and have to communicate with them as
well.

Turkish industry relied on technology transfer from foreign companies rather than on domestic
technology development (Tantekin-Ersolmaz et al., 2006). Hence, the new system helps to
improve the current technology, because of close relationship among designers-students-
lecturers.

The learner may in no case be excluded from the ‘learning contract’ (Psarianos, A., 2006). Before
the young naval architects start to work, they start to communicate with the designers for a chance
to learn from each other.
Teaching in the engineering science is often easier than in design, and is closer to faculty research
interests, requires less engineering experience, and can be performed without time consuming
contacts with industry (Jones, 1991). It is aimed to overcome such problems as the new system
helps the faculty members to improve their teaching skills in design.

As a result of the above mentioned reasons, The Department of NAME decided to change the
education system step by step. The first step includes “Ship Design Project” (SDP) lectures, where
the main principle of the new system is to simulate a design office as close as possible. It was
decided that students and lecturers should work together in teams. On the other hand, teams of
students would have a partner such as a design office to promote their projects. Every team would
be as large as 4 or 5 students from different success levels.

GiDB|DERGi Sayı 5, 2016