Red Rocks Community College Transfer Track

This track is available to students who have transferred to Mines from Red Rocks Community College. Up to two pillars can be completed (or partially completed) through experiences will a student at Red Rocks. Note that the remaining requirements must be completed at Mines and must follow the same guidelines (in terms of objectives and number of equivalent credits) outlined on the Program Requirements page.

Interdisciplinary Curriculum

The purpose of this pillar is to provide you with the skills to address the interdisciplinary nature of the Grand Challenges, which requires knowledge beyond technical expertise. Upon completing this requirement, you will also be able to describe the challenges and opportunities that inherently sociotechnical problems present, and how to best approach such problems.

To meet this requirement, the Scholar must complete 6 units of the following:

  • Trefny Honors Program – a two-year interdisciplinary program around wicked problems (includes Honors Seminar HON 100, 1 credit; HON 102, 2 credits; and HON 202, 2 credits; and HON Capstone 289, variable credits 1-3)
  • PTK Honors Class: POS 289, 2 credits

Service Learning

Each of the Grand Challenges aims to address a major societal or global problem. Service learning and community engagement combined with or integrated into your engineering education will prepare you to address problems that impact people and their communities in your future career. Such engagement requires sustaining relationships over time.

Scholars must complete one of the following:

  • Campus involvement such as working as a tutor in the Learning Commons, active participation in Student Government or the PTK Honors Chapter, or other on-campus service role
  • Substantial involvement in STEM Outreach through the IDEA Lab
  • Taking a course with a service-learning designation (SL)
  • Substantial involvement in a student club with a service-orientation such as Ideas to Action or Peace Jam

Entrepreneurship

Entrepreneurship embodies many of the skills required of a GCS: ingenuity, teamwork and communication. It requires reading and responding creatively to needs in context. This skillset is required to address the Grand Challenges.

Scholars must complete one of the following:

  • BUS 140 Entrepreneurial Operations
  • Substantial participation in an IDEA Lab project
  • Participation in a competition that involves solving an original problem in a team-based setting

Global Awareness

The Grand Challenges are problems that impact populations across the world. Working with international countries requires a special understanding and awareness that is rarely fostered in conventional engineering curricula.

Scholars must complete one of the following:

  • Participating in a study abroad program (see options at https://www.rrcc.edu/student-academic-travel)
  • COM 220 Intercultural Communication
  • Studying a foreign language (excludes Conversational and Language for Travelers classes)

Research or Project-Based Learning Experience

Project-based learning and undergraduate research experiences provide opportunities for students to unify the skills and knowledge they have acquired from their diverse courses and extracurricular experiences, and to apply them to a problem that matters. Addressing the Grand Challenges will require such an ability.

Scholars must complete 6 credits or equivalent of the following:

  • EGT 140 with a GCS relevant project  (3 credits)

This track was created in partnership with Liz Cox, Director of the IDEA Institute at Red Rocks Community College.