In fact, most of the instructors in ENES 100 were teaching freshmen for the first time. Until this course, freshman fundamentals were the sole responsibility of mechanical engineering. But for ENES 100, all the other departments were asked to provide at least one and sometimes two of their best teachers. Each proposed instructor had to have the approval of Dean George Dieter. In Lawson's experience, freshmen are quite different from the students he is used to.
Seniors are very careful and cautious.
Freshmen, on the other hand, are much more open. Lawson wonders whether upperclassmen could learn a thing or two from their younger colleagues. Maybe we don't do a good enough job of encouraging creativity on the way out. He says he plans to apply what he has learned, wherever possible, to the teaching of upper- level and graduate courses. Perhaps the most significant effects of the windmill project have yet to be felt.