Mechanical engineering potpourri: Dr. Voglewede’s gift to future industry leaders

When Katherine Kowal, Eng '26, finished her final technical elective course as a Marquette engineering student, her instructor handed out a peculiar end-of-class gift: homemade potpourri.

For Kowal, the floral container was not too surprising. It mirrored the name of the course, Mechanical Engineering Potpourri, and represented the same lessons that Dr. Phil Voglewede imparted every week of the spring semester.

The course, Voglewede's novel creation after a sabbatical in industry and a favorite among mechanical engineering students, focuses on a survey of practical engineering tools and engineering philosophies that are used in entry-level positions. Throughout the semester, the students build a toolbox of new skills and strategies to take with them into their careers.

"My students are heading into a chaotic and confusing world of industrial practice, and no curriculum can fully cover everything they will encounter in their first job or in the years ahead," says Voglewede. "This course introduces a variety of tools they can use on day one through day 10,000, and more importantly, teach them to how to become lifelong learners."

The potpourri gift represents Voglewede's vision for the course and serves as a reminder to the students about their duty to continuously grow in skills, knowledge and understanding.

The base of the potpourri are literal nuts and bolts, representing the foundational skills and knowledge (like statics, dynamics, thermodynamics and heat transfer) that they will carry with them throughout their career as engineers. The blue and gold florals above are the add-on topics covered in the class (brainstorming, legal aspects, risk management and the product development process) that make it a true potpourri, representing the variety of additional tools and skills that an engineer needs to master to be able to be effective.

"The students have a visual reminder of their education and have a choice. They can open it and use it or keep it sealed and forget what they have learned here. Either way, the florals will decay; the foundational bolts will get rusty," says Voglewede. "This is analogous to their mind and career. It's a reminder that they're the ones who have to preserve their knowledge and cultivate new knowledge. The jar must continually be updated."

"I hope it reminds me of not only my time at Marquette, but also my toolbox from the course and the medley of instruments I have to utilize in my career," she says. "I hope to start recognizing the tools in a professional engineering setting and finding the overlap between how the tools were explained in class compared to how they are used at Milwaukee Tool."

Along with the metaphorical gift from Voglewede, Kowal left Marquette with a more tangible gift that she created herself. The course's final deliverable is a concise toolbox document that outlines the tools they've explored along with an analysis of their potential value in the engineering process. Voglewede insists that the document be personal, easy -to reference, ready to be shared in an interview and something that will be useful in their careers.

"Potpourri was always my first answer when interviewers asked about courses I'm taking," says Kowal. "Thanks to the course and the toolbox, I was able to mention specific tools and processes in precise industry terminology, which seemed to spark interest with the interviewers."

To keep the toolbox and the potpourri fresh, as well as to practice what he preaches, Voglewede's course is always in flux. He surveys his former students and industry connections for their ideas on what they wished they had learned at Marquette. He even regularly posts to his LinkedIn network to crowdsource ideas of what students will need next.

"My hope as an educator is that I am setting students up to succeed and supporting our industry partners with the talent they need," says Voglewede. "The stakes are high. These Marquette students are the engineers, designers and executives that will have to fix the problems of our world."

The course remains in high demand, and Voglewede shows no signs of stopping his work. He is motivated by what he hears from students in exit surveys describing the course:

"A combination of all the good stuff!"

"A conglomeration of stuff that your boss may bring up in the next five years that you previously would've had no idea what they were talking about."

"A magician's hat."

"Nuts and bolts with smelly stuff on top."

"Mechanical Engineering Potpourri is a constantly evolving thing that only stops working if you let it."