GEL1 students actively practice as members of and leaders of teams. They engage in carefully crafted team experiential learning activities to develop their leadership, communication, and teamwork skills. With feedback and reflection experiences, GEL1s gain valuable engineering leadership capabilities.
To earn the certificate, GEL 1 students must complete 6.911 Engineering Leadership Lab and 6.912 Engineering Leadership, as well as one of the many courses that satisfy the Design & Innovation Leadership Requirement. (See table below as a graphic.)
| Requirement | Description | Class Time | Units/Credit |
|---|---|---|---|
| 6.9110 Engineering Leadership Lab (ELL) | Exposes students to engineering leadership frameworks and models in an interactive, experiential, team-based environment. Activities include: design-build projects, role-plays, simulations, and performance assessment by/of other students. (Both semesters) | 2 hours per week | 6 units total (3 per semester) |
| 6.9120: Engineering Leadership (ELL) | Introduces models, theories, and methods of engineering leadership in the contexts of conceiving, designing, implementing and operating products and systems. Discusses the appropriate times and reasons to use particular models to deliver engineering success. (Both semesters) | 1 1/2 hours per week | 6 units (3 per semester) |
| Engineering Practice Requirement Essay (EPR1) | All GELs must reflect on an experience working on a project team in an engineering context. Students identify a project they are already involved in to meet the criteria. Through a structured reflection assignment, students practice writing a project post-mortem. | Component of 6.912 (either Fall or Spring term) | |
| Personal Leadership Development Plan (PLDP) | This assignment is designed to increase familiarity with the Capabilities of Effective Engineering Leaders and encourage reflection regarding personal and professional development. Students rate their competency level for each capability on an ongoing basis. | Component of 6.912 (both Fall and Spring terms) | |
| Design & Innovation Leadership Requirement (D&ILR) - see chart below | The D&ILR requirement educates future engineering leaders in an end-to-end product or system design process that includes design validation and testing. Students select any one from among six approved subjects to complete this requirment: 6.910A+6.910B (taken together in the same semester), EC.797 (same as 2.729), EC.720 (same as 2.722), EC.725, 16.810, or EC.720. * Students who have completed First-Year Discovery subject 6.9101 receive incoming credit for 6.910A and can finish the requirement by taking 6.910B (3-units). Please review the D&ILR subject selection guide in chart below | Times and units vary by subject. See details in chart below. | |
| Mentorship | The GEL Program will host a mid-fall mentoring event where students can meet and be connected with engineers and engineering leaders with industry experience. | Recommended/Optional |
Goals of the GEL1 year:
All GEL 1 students must fulfill the Design & Innovation Leadership Requirement (D&ILR) by completing one of the six courses listed in the table below.
GEL has worked to both develop courses and partner with other programs to provide course offerings that relate to different product domains and areas of interest. The courses below each provide uniquely wide coverage of the full product development cycle, spanning understanding user needs, early-stage conceptualization, product realization, user testing, and design validation. Many other design courses stop short of covering this full cycle. Only the courses listed below may be used to satisfy the Design & Innovation Leadership Requirement.
| D-TILE Design-Thinking & Innovation Leadership for Engineers | D-Lab Design for Scale | D-PRO Engineering Design & Rapid Prototyping | D-Lab Leadership in Design | D-Lab Design | LP3 Leadership: People, Products, Projects |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Registration | 6.910A + 6.910B Fall • 6-Units Students must complete both Parts A and B. 6.9101 can count as a substitute for Part A. | EC.797 Fall • 12-Units Same as 2.729 | 16.810 IAP • 6-Units Jan 12 - 23, 2026 | EC.725 Spring • 6-Units | EC.720 Spring • 12-Units Same as 2.722 | 6.9250 Spring • 9-Units Graduate-level course with space reserved for GEL undergraduates. |
| Class project type | Web-based software /speech recognition system | Hardware | Multidisciplinary system (hardware, with possibility of software and other elements) | Hardware | Hardware | Students select project type. Digital or physical projects are both possible. |
| Method of design refinement | Multiple rounds of user testing | Fine-tuning a physical prototype | Multiobjective optimization through iterative modeling | Fine-tuning a physical prototype | Fine-tuning a physical prototype | User research |
| Method of design validation | User testing of speech recognition system | Manufacture & physical testing of hardware across scales of production | System laboratory testing (testing of prototype hardware installed within a larger system) | User testing of prototype hardware | User testing of prototype hardware | User testing; feedback from expert panel |
| Special focus | User-centric design | Scale-up of a design for wide deployment | Multiobjective optimization and rapid prototyping in a simulated company | User-centric design under severe resource constraint | User-centric design under severe resource constraint | User-centric design |
| Common focus | Though MIT hosts many excellent design-related subjects, the subjects above are unique in their holistic coverage of an end-to-end design process that includes design validation and testing. Students not only learn about this end-to-end process, but practice most or all of it during the semester. |
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