Materials Science: 10 Things Every Engineer Should Know on Coursera

Created by UC Davis Continuing and Professional Education and hosted on the Coursera platform, this is an online course consisting of pre-recorded video lectures, auto-graded and peer-reviewed assignments and community discussion forums. This specialization program is self-paced and designed to help you master a specific career skill in as little as 4-6 months.

We explore “10 things” that range from the menu of materials available to engineers in their profession to the many mechanical and electrical properties of materials important to their use in various engineering fields. We also discuss the principles behind the manufacturing of those materials.

By the end of this self-paced course, you will be able to:

• Recognize the important aspects of the materials used in modern engineering applications,
• Explain the underlying principle of materials science: “structure leads to properties,”
• Identify the role of thermally activated processes in many of these important “things” – as illustrated by the Arrhenius relationship, and
• Relate each of these topics to issues that have arisen (or potentially could arise) in your life and work.