Asee peer logo

Master Of Engineering Program As A Mechanism To Provide Relevant Graduate Education To Working Professionals

Download Paper |

Conference

2009 Annual Conference & Exposition

Location

Austin, Texas

Publication Date

June 14, 2009

Start Date

June 14, 2009

End Date

June 17, 2009

ISSN

2153-5965

Conference Session

Programs That Serve Industry and Academia

Tagged Division

Continuing Professional Development

Page Count

8

Page Numbers

14.863.1 - 14.863.8

DOI

10.18260/1-2--4653

Permanent URL

https://strategy.asee.org/4653

Download Count

337

Request a correction

Paper Authors

biography

Eugene Rutz University of Cincinnati

visit author page

Eugene Rutz is an Academic Director in the College of Engineering at the University of Cincinnati. He manages the College's accelerated bachelor's / master's programs, coordinates distance learning activities, manages the Master of Engineering Program, and works with local high schools on collaborative pre-engineering programs. Eugene is a licensed professional engineer and also teaches as an adjunct instructor.

visit author page

biography

Timothy Keener University of Cincinnati

visit author page

Tim Keener is a Professor of Environmental Engineering and the Associate Dean for Research and Graduate Studies in the College of Engineering.

visit author page

Download Paper |

Abstract
NOTE: The first page of text has been automatically extracted and included below in lieu of an abstract

Master of Engineering Program as a Mechanism to Provide Relevant Graduate Education to Working Professionals

Abstract

The paper describes a new degree program, the Master of Engineering (MEng) Program, and compares this new program with the traditional MS program. The characteristics of the new program are presented and the advantages for working professionals are discussed. The outcomes achieved in the initial offering of the program are also described.

Need for the Program

The report Reshaping the Graduate Education of Scientists and Engineers states “A world of work that has become more interdisciplinary, collaborative, and global requires that we produce young people who are adaptable and flexible, as well as technically proficient”1. Today’s engineers must be integrators of knowledge, able to innovate and collaborate in an interdisciplinary environment. Major change in the engineering education system is necessary if it is to meet the needs of the nation and the world in the coming century. Recent national reports on engineering education 1,2,3,4,5 stress the need for flexible graduate programs focusing on advanced practice and the world of work of the future. Bordogna5 puts it this way “There is a growing consensus that professional engineers need an integrative masters degree and that our universities need to offer more practice oriented masters degree programs that have stronger connections to industry and to the social, economic and management sciences”. From these sources and our own conversations with technical organizations, there is clear and compelling evidence for the need for a graduate program specifically targeted to the needs of working professionals.

Surveys conducted by both Northern Arizona University 6 and JACMET7 indicate that there is a need and market demand for practice-oriented graduate education. The results indicate that course length should be shorter than the typical three-hour graduate course. In addition, place- bound graduate engineers would like to operate in a virtual university climate, that is, be able to access course material 24 hours per day, 365 days per year.

The National Science Foundation8, in a report entitled Higher Education in Science and Engineering: Graduate S&E Students and Degrees in the United States - Overall Trends in Graduate Enrollment states that “Terminal master’s degree programs might be viewed as the science equivalents of master’s degree programs in business administration. Although these programs have existed for many years, industrial and academic interest is growing in programs that prepare students to enter emerging science and engineering (S&E) fields as skilled professionals.”

In preparation for establishing the new program, the College of Engineering at the University of Cincinnati prepared an educational needs assessment to quantitatively measure the interest in the proposed master of engineering program. The assessment was made available to College alumni through a web-mediated survey.

Rutz, E., & Keener, T. (2009, June), Master Of Engineering Program As A Mechanism To Provide Relevant Graduate Education To Working Professionals Paper presented at 2009 Annual Conference & Exposition, Austin, Texas. 10.18260/1-2--4653

ASEE holds the copyright on this document. It may be read by the public free of charge. Authors may archive their work on personal websites or in institutional repositories with the following citation: © 2009 American Society for Engineering Education. Other scholars may excerpt or quote from these materials with the same citation. When excerpting or quoting from Conference Proceedings, authors should, in addition to noting the ASEE copyright, list all the original authors and their institutions and name the host city of the conference. - Last updated April 1, 2015