Optics curriculum development at the Optical Sciences Center

Richard L. Shoemaker

doi:10.1117/12.468706

28 May 2002 Optics curriculum development at the Optical Sciences Center

Richard L. Shoemaker

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Proceedings Volume 4588, Seventh International Conference on Education and Training in Optics and Photonics; (2002) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.468706
Event: Education and Training in Optics and Photonics 2001, 2001, Singapore, Singapore

Abstract

The broad scope and interdisciplinary nature of optics makes it difficult to develop an optics curriculum with sufficient breadth and depth to adequately teach the material one would like a graduating student to know, and to effectively prepare them for career in optics. The University of Arizona's Optical Sciences Center offers M.S. and Ph.D. graduate programs as well as an undergraduate B.S. program, with each of these programs having distinctly different goals and curricula. The primary intent of the Ph.D program is to provide the student with a broad basic optics education plus in-depth education and research experience in a sub-field of optics, while the primary intent of the M.S. program is to provide students with either an in-depth education in a particular optics sub-field or a broad basic optics education. The undergraduate program prepares students for an industrial optics career at the junior engineer level, with tracks or minors that allow a student to also acquire competence in any one of several related fields. In this paper, the various curricula and related examinations that have been developed for these three programs are discussed, along with the considerations that drove their development, their successes, and their shortcomings.

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Richard L. Shoemaker "Optics curriculum development at the Optical Sciences Center", Proc. SPIE 4588, Seventh International Conference on Education and Training in Optics and Photonics, (28 May 2002); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.468706

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