Providing a top-tier education that prepares HCDE students for long-term impact and success.
Overview
HCDE’s Education pillar focuses on sustaining and evolving our educational programs so they remain high-quality, relevant, and responsive to a changing world. This means building on what HCDE does well while making sure our students continue to gain meaningful, hands-on experience, strong preparation for life after graduation, and access to learning opportunities that reflect the realities of the field.
The Education pillar also recognizes that HCDE’s programs do not exist in isolation. They are shaped by students, alumni, instructors, employers, and community partners, and they must continue to adapt as technologies, workforce expectations, and student needs evolve. This pillar is about keeping HCDE’s education distinctive, rigorous, and valuable over time.
Outcomes
HCDE’s educational programs deliver consistently high-quality learning experiences and are in sustained demand from prospective students and external stakeholders.
HCDE will continue improving the quality, relevance, and clarity of its educational offerings so that students understand the value of an HCDE education and experience it as intellectually strong and professionally useful.
Strategies
- Ensure continuous quality and improvement of academic programs across the department.
- Strengthen program positioning and recruitment through clear articulation of outcomes and value.
- Evolve HCDE’s program portfolio to prepare learners for a changing world through interdisciplinary, human-centered, and impact-driven education.
All HCDE students participate in high-quality, well-scoped experiential learning grounded in sustained industry and community partnerships.
Experiential learning is central to an HCDE education. This outcome focuses on ensuring that sponsor and community-engaged projects are meaningful, well-supported, and consistently strong for students, partners, and faculty alike.
Strategies
- Build and manage a high-quality sponsor pipeline.
- Ensure consistent project quality through clear vetting, scoping, and delivery processes.
- Develop sustained partnerships and engagement models that deepen impact and reduce operational burden.
HCDE graduates experience strong career outcomes, opportunities, and sustained value from their degrees.
HCDE’s education should create long-term value for students well beyond graduation. This outcome focuses on career preparation, alumni outcomes, and the support students need to connect their education to meaningful professional pathways.
Strategies
- Establish a coordinated, multi-year alumni relations program to regularly assess the long-term outcomes and value of HCDE degrees.
- Support faculty and instructors’ capacity to increase real-world relevance and interdisciplinary applications in their teaching.
- Center students’ needs for tailored career preparation and dedicated support.
All UW engineering undergraduates have opportunities to engage with HCDE.
HCDE plays an important role in the broader engineering ecosystem at UW. This outcome focuses on widening access to HCDE courses and reducing barriers so more students can benefit from our perspective and approach.
Strategies
- Restore and expand gateway course access.
- Reduce barriers to HCDE course participation.