3.1

Major introductive practicum for freshman

“Major introductive practicum” for freshman is scheduled at the beginning of the student’s first summer break. At this point, students have just confirmed their major and are very eager to understand what an optical engineering major can do in the future. Professional leaders, professors and senior students are invited to have orientation lectures to provide different points of view. After orientation lecture, one week of introductive practicum for optical engineering major is arranged. The introductive practicum contains 5 section contents:

Each student should complete the projects of all 5 sections.

About 140 students are enrolled in the program each year, and they are divided into 5 group with about 28 students/group. Every group spends one day in one section and rotates to other sections in other days.

3.2

Opto-Mechanical Systems Design

“Opto-Mechanical Systems Design” is an introductive course for practical skill training. We use the Problem-Based Learning (PBL) method. We take commonly used optics products and optical components as design cases, and use SolidWorks design tools to study and design the basic opto-mechanical system structure. The main teaching contents are: optical parts holding mechanism, optical adjusting and moving mechanism, simple sheet metal and injection molding structure design, etc.

Optical design and mechanical design are the two stages of an optical problem. The optical system cannot exist independently without the mechanical structure. Though this class learning, students will be familiar with:

Fig. 1.

Students assembling a 3D printer by themselves.

Fig 2.

Equipments for electronic engineering training

During the last two weeks of the freshman summer break, “Opto-mechanical Structure Design” course is arranged. In this course, the students learned to design a simple opto mechanical structure independently, and completed a simple project design. By completing this project design, students had the opportunity to learn how to use general mechanical design software, such as SolidWorks, to carry out real mechanical structure design.

Compared to freshmen, sophomore students have already learned some introductory courses about optics and electronics. Students are willing to try their own ability to see what they can actually do after two years of study. At this point, a design project that matches students’ abilities is arranged to apply their knowledge to practice. By such design practices, students can learn how to use theoretical knowledge in practical application.

3.3

Engineering training

“Engineering training” is a general program for all of students, not only for optical engineering majors. The usage of various mechanical tooling such as turning machine, miller, grinder etc. will be trained in this program. It is not a key part of Education and Training in Optics and Photonics (ETOP). We will explain the implementation of the hierarchy curriculum in detail except for “engineering training”.

3.4

SRTP

SRTP is open to students who have the desire and ability to pursue project research. The project can be proposed by the students themselves or by faculty members of the college.

In the beginning, students will select from the project list proposed by the teachers. Then, they will prepare a project implementation plan. They will then present their project implementation plan, which will be reviewed by faculty members. Mentors and team members discuss the project progress regularly. Lastly, a demonstration and presentation of project research results will graded. The college provides about 1000 RMB for each team, and the advisors usually give additional finance support. More than 80% of students participate in SRTP, and about 90% of them can pass the final presentation and obtain non-lecture credit.

3.5

Electronic Engineering Training

Electronic Engineering Training practice is an electronic circuit-based practicum course. Circuit design and debugging are basic skills that students who are electrical related majors must master. The electronic engineering training practicum involves schematic drawing, PCB layout, PCB engraving, welding, debugging and other exercises. The course pays attention to hands-on training, assisted with some theoretical material to improve the student’s hands-on ability and foster teamwork spirit.

3.6

CAD based optical system design

The course on CAD based optical system design is set in the second summer break. Students have finished the course “Applied Optics” after the end of their sophomore year. We schedule the optics system design course two weeks after summer break. This course lets students learn how to use Zemax, an optics design software commonly used in industry, to design typical telescope and microscope lenses.

3.7

National University Students’ Optical-Science-Technology Competition

Competition Games are very attractive to young students. In the past decades, there are no specific competition games for optical and photonics engineering students. In order to inspire enthusiasm for learning optics in the students, ZJU has found the National Optical Design Competition Game for College Student in 2008. The 5^th game was held in University of Electronic Science and Technology in Chengdu, China. More than 700 students from 80 universities joined the game.

3.8

Junior Year Off-Campus Externship

Students in other countries find practicum companies are entirely students own business. If they want to get a good position, they must stand out from many applicants. They also handle living and traveling issues on their own. In some ways, Chinese higher education are very lenient to students. Students can ask for help at any time. The university arranges almost everything for the students. Regarding practicums, students hope that the university can provide them with the best practicums.

Although the practice inside the university is more consistent with the students’ professional knowledge background and abilities. The teachers and assistants during the practicum are all available fulltime to instruct students to solve the difficulties encountered in their practicum. From the perspective of professional counterparts, the school can meet the students’ need in knowledge and technical training. But the practicums are specially constructed for students, not the real working world. The environment outside the practicum is an experience the school cannot provide.

To ensure every student have a chance to work in companies as an externship, teachers who are in charge take advantage of alumni resources. More than 20 optical and photonics related firms have agreed to serve as student internship camps. Every junior year student has opportunities to go to one of these firm to participate in the camp. These firms include Changchun Institute of Optical, Fine Mechanics and Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Shanghai Institute of Optical, Fine Mechanics, CAS, Institute of Optics and Electronics, CAS and other high level research organizations, well-known companies, private enterprise and other types of technology companies.

Through internships in the enterprise, students experience a totally different atmosphere from that in school. Many students who participated mentioned that to effectively utilize these opportunities in the firm, self-motivation is very important. If one does not take the initiative, no one will care whether one studies. One must integrate itself into the organization before one can play its individual role. This way of doing things is completely different from that in school. At school, the teacher always considers the students’ convenience. In firms, students will feel the need to relocate their position. The living condition during the off-campus internship is not as good as that on campus, but training students to adapt to industrial environments is very important. In order to enable students to be familiar with diverse enterprise environments, we also arrange students in two different enterprises to switch positions regularly, so each student may have the chance to work in two different enterprises.

Figure 3.

A scene of 3th NUSOSTC in Fuzhou. The students were preparing for the self-navigation car chasing competition.