Elementary particles for Engineers

Introducing elementary particles to science and engineering students (non-physics majors), poses both a challenge and an opportunity. The challenge is the limited time available for the topic, which is usually taught as part of an elective modern physics course. The opportunity lies in being able to share the beauty of our subject with people who are motivated to learn and tend to focus more on conceptual insights. I will describe my approach, in which I take students of an introductory course on quantum mechanics on a journey from the classical harmonic oscillators and standing waves to particles as excitations/waves of quantum fields.