Changing Civil Engineering Students’ Mindset Toward Programming

Ponder this question: does being an expert in one area (e.g., civil engineering) change the way you program? The author describes what patterns they noticed among civil engineering students in terms of problem solving and code writing. You’ll see how skills of connecting physical structures, logic and math get translated into code. Is their impact visible even in high level activities like code reuse, generalisation, and problem decomposition? It is not just about the differences in applications, but also about finding a golden middle ground between high-level and detailed, between applied and abstract.

This chapter is for you not just if you work with civil engineers, but also if you are an instructor in a field with its own specific ways of problem-solving. You might also enjoy pedagogical parallels woven from jumping between niche examples for engineering students, and high-level course design.