According to CDIO requirements, students should be trained to grasp abilities in technical knowledge and reasoning; personal and professional skills as well as attitudes; interpersonal, teamwork and communication skills; conceiving, designing, implementing and operating systems in enterprise and societal context. It’s essential to begin the training when student is a freshman, which is of particular importance in China as the exam-oriented education in China makes students feel at a loss as there’s nobody telling them how to make a plan for college study, what’s the purpose of the curriculum significance, and how to begin studies. This paper illustrates an ongoing project, Cornerstone, in Electronic and Information Engineering (EIE) Department, Shantou University for freshman directed by the concept of CDIO. In the beginning of the project we introduce the intensions and ideas of CDIO and how syllabus is designed accordingly to fresh students to give them a clear picture of professional courses and CDIO practices in their upcoming studies. After that, we provide them a road map of engineering studies by analyzing a particular electronic device to illustrate the connection between this product to professional courses. We also offer them visit to electronic production enterprise and invite its leader to give them a speech to show what requirements modern enterprises need from engineers. Finally, we divide students into groups to conceive and design an actual electronic system themselves. As students do not begin their professional courses yet, the purpose of this project is to train their abilities of conceiving (C) and designing (D). We plan to carry out implementing (I) and operating (O) training gradually according to courses procedure to complete full CDIO trainings for students.
