FAQs

GEC is being delivered in person face to face this year - you will be attending your hub on campus for the whole week. 

Your LSP will have been considered by the projects team and adjustments made where possible. If you are concerned at all please email eng-projectweeks@sheffield.ac.uk for specific confidential information. 

You must attend all week on campus to work with staff, students, and alumni. You will be assigned to a Hub. This is a room on campus. 

All your resources are on Blackboard, you access to the Blackboard site will not be available until the 16th January at the earliest. 

Your attendance is being monitored please let your facilitator and team know if you are going to be late and make sure you make up for lost time and contribution to the team work.

The GEC is a formal assessment and as such you need to demonstrate that you have achieved the learning that is required. Missing part of the week is covered in the FAQ above. However, if you miss all of the week due to Extenuating Circumstances means that your absence will be recorded on your student record as “Not Assessed” or NA (as opposed to a Fail if you did not have Extenuating Circumstances).  You will still need to do the work to demonstrate your competence in this subject area.  You will therefore be asked to do a resit activity.

All students are given the opportunity to rank the projects in order of preference. The teams of 5-6 are compiled using this information, but we also want to mix you up, so we will ensure that there are students from several departments in every team. There are nearly 1500 first year students in the Faculty of Engineering and all are doing GEC. It is therefore unlikely (although not impossible) that you will know your other group members. You will do by the end of the week .

6-7 teams are gathered together in a hub.  Each hub has its own physical room for the week and its own dedicated hub Facilitator. Your Facilitator is a PhD student.

You will learn about and develop a range of skills that you might not have met in your modules so far. You’ll learn about developing ideas and how to make rapid assessments of feasibility, project management and planning. During the process you will become a better team worker, gain a greater understanding of feedback and find out how to be a better communicator. It is all these sorts of skills that will improve your success and understanding in future modules 

The specific learning outcomes are below:

• Work in a multidisciplinary team

• Extract relevant information from multiple sources

• Discuss some of the professional and ethical responsibilities of Engineers, showing awareness of
  the global and sustainable development context of engineering projects

• Employ a structured design process to develop a conceptual solution to an outline problem,
  showing that the concept will work for the project context

• Evaluate the environmental impact of engineering solutions

• Demonstrate awareness of the cost and sustainability of a solution.

• Deliver short presentations on their work

You need to submit and pass all of the assessments to demonstrate meeting all of the learning outcomes

GEC is a compulsory module, you must pass this in order to graduate (see programme regs here). Level 1 students are entitled to TWO resit attempts, which will be in the following semester 2, week 5-8, and then following academic year, in semester 2, week 5-8. . The resit will involve submitting and/or reviewing a project report.

Students with Extenuating Circumstances will be considered on a case by case basis.

If you are ill or experience a personal problem that prevents you from attending part of project weeks, then you must do the following:

1. Please let your hub facilitator know

2. Keep in touch with your team and if possible catch up on any missed work

3. If you are going to miss more than 1 day and will be unable to complete work as part of the team, then complete your school's extenuating circumstances form, linked here. You will need to follow the ECF procedure for your school. Your Extenuating Circumstances Form must be with your department by Friday 14th February 2025.

Please note that as the GEC is part of the formal assessment for your degree, the same rules apply as for exams. The explanatory notes detailing what constitutes Extenuating Circumstances are here. 

Over the course of your degree, the knowledge and skills that you will learn and develop during GEC will help underpin your ongoing studies on many occasions.

Will you be undertaking projects (whether individually or in groups)? Learning about project management will come in handy then!

Will you be working in groups? Learning how to work together in a team and overcome difficulties will be useful!

Will you have to use your knowledge and judgment to solve a real-world problem? Real problems are complex and often involve balancing conflicting requirements. To develop effective engineering solutions involves an iterative process of problem analysis, solution identification, development and critical evaluation and decisions based on engineering knowledge and judgement. This project will provide a framework for tackling complex problems.

Will you ever do work that involves working with the constraints of a particular geographical location or requirements of a user group not exactly the same as yourself? Understanding more about the world, global issues and how sustainability and inter-linked systems underpin successful engineering solutions might be useful.

Will you ever work for a “client”? Being able to view things from a different perspective is fundamental to all engineers/computer scientists.

Will you ever have to explain/ answer questions about your own work? If we aren’t able to explain to others the value and importance of the work we do, then people will stop believing in us/ funding us/ employing us!

The skills and knowledge learnt in both GEC and EYH are now part of the accreditation for your degree. These include:

•        Engage in the creative and innovative development of engineering technology.

•        Plan, budget, organise, direct and control tasks, people and resources.

•        Demonstrate personal and social skills.

•        Lead teams and develop staff to meet changing technical and managerial needs.

•        Present and discuss proposals. Communicate in English with others at all levels.

When you go for a job, employers know what they are looking for in candidates. Jaguar Land Rover, for example, expects their employees to have sufficient skills to meet their Higher Performance Behaviours:

•        A sense of “my business”

•        Effective relationships

•        Strong teams

•        Efficient delivery

•        Agility and flexibility

•        Positive impact

•        Clear direction

•        High performance.

It will be the culmination of all these abilities that make you an employable graduate. Global Engineering Challenge gives you the opportunity to help develop these sought-after skills. When you come to apply for a placement, internships and jobs (engineering-based or not), you’ll be able to give employers examples of when and how you developed these core job qualities. This is an opportunity for you to get one step ahead of the person who will be sitting next to you at your next job interview! 

The person you will most often see is your Hub Facilitator who is a PhD student. The Facilitators will be both leading on the teaching and helping you progress your project. All the Facilitators are doing PhDs, either within the Faculty of Engineering or in allied subject areas. They are a friendly bunch; maybe you are interested in finding out a bit about their PhD and why they chose to carry on studying?

Staff - each Hub has a dedicated staff member who will be there at a number of times in the week.

An Industrial Mentor - on the Wednesday, there will be “Industrial Mentors” present. These are people from engineering companies who will be involved in activities throughout the day. This will include them visiting the hubs and talking to groups about their projects; they will also be in the “Boardrooms”.

Have you ever watched the TV show “The Apprentice”? In The Apprentice, a team of people who have been tasked with an activity under a nominated team leader, report back to the “Board” at the end of the day, detailing their achievements and any problems. Similarly, during GEC, your team will go to the Boardroom at the end of Wednesday. The Board will comprise your Hub Facilitator, your Hub Staff member and (when available) an Industrial Mentor. The team, led by the team leader, will then report on their progress, achievements and problems so far. The Board will ask questions and give feedback, in order to help the team progress.

In each hub on the Friday afternoon, the 6 groups pitch to the Hub members.

If you have a job interview or assessment centre then please liaise with your group and make up the time when you can. Inform your facilitator of this action.  An EC form is only needed if you are expected to miss more than 1 day.

If you have religious commitments during the week, then please arrange to catch up with any work missed with your team.

You will be expected to put in the same hours to help your team with the project - but you can do this flexibly.  An EC form is only needed if you are expected to miss more than 1 day.

There should be no exams during GEC week - but if there is one which has been missed by us - please let us know (email: eng-projectweeks@sheffield.ac.uk). If you do have an exam then please liaise with your group and inform your facilitator of your exam.