The Cultivation Model Of Entrepreneurial Spirits And Capability Of Engineering Undergraduates, Based On CDIO System

The entrepreneurship education has surged with the knowledge-based economy and become one of the most vital part of higher education reform. Stanford University and MIT are the excellent samples of innovative universities. Also, the entrepreneurship education leads the way of enhancing economic reform, relieving pressure from unemployment and promoting education refom.Entrepreneurship education in China started in 1997, when Tsinghua University introduced the startup planning competition to the domestic universities, and it became the origin of entrepreneurship education. It has been afterward supported by governments and enhanced by universities, and has comprised degree of entrepreneurship, the secondary class, business internship, student associations, and startup competitions. Also, three models of education came to shape in this decade. Recently, domestic universities took advantage of their characteristic disciplines, cultivated talents of entrepreneurship, and applied CDIO to engineering education as well.Entrepreneurship education should be compatible with engineering education. But engineering students did not receive enough training about essential skills of business and entrepreneurship. To practice is the common fundamental of entrepreneurship education and engineering education, and CDIO is quite appropriate in terms of this topic. The author, taking the cases in Zhejiang University, does his research in terms of four aspects:1. The current situation of entrepreneurship education; 2. The theoretical base and practical experience of CDIO; 3. The key factors of entrepreneurship education; 4. The mechanism by which those factors can be planted into engineering education system.With questionnaires retrieved and startup teams interviewed, the author concludes this paper to these statements:1. CDIO system is the intersection part of entrepreneurship education and engineering education. The core conceptions of entrepreneurship and engineering are to practice. There exits the common foundation of entrepreneurial education and engineering education.2. The entrepreneurial education comprises practical training, curriculum, tutors, hardware and mechanism. Based on real circumstances, it is to provide trail-wrong opportunities, to cultivate the spirit of entrepreneurship, and to train students to solve real-life problems.3. The system should stick to professional knowledge, and, at the same moment, fill the blank with entrepreneurial education. It focuses on the consistency of engineering education system and entrepreneurial one, and can take the various forms, such as project, off-campus tutors, and elimination system.