Abstract
The role and education of engineers are widely discussed in recent years, because of the increasing relevance of technology and technological knowledge for the future sustainable economic development. Engineering programs should be able to provide students with the desirable level of vertical specialisation, and also with multi- and inter-disciplinarity, non-traditional, horizontal competences and soft skills. To this aim, a "situated" or "embedded teaching" approach could be helpful. An example is reported in which such an approach has been applied to a bachelor and a master program in management engineering at LIUC Università Cattaneo. Three transversal paths have been introduced on sustainability, critical thinking and fieldwork, in which a set of theoretical and practical activities are totally embedded not only into a real context, but also into the set of laws, language and symbols typical of the traditional specialization engineering disciplines.