a BROADER perspective

ASEE Prism, Jan 2006 by Loftus, Margaret

Other schools take a more traditional approach. The Engineering Year Abroad Program at Syracuse, for example, was started in 1980 by LaGraff, a mechanical and aerospace engineering professor who had completed his graduate work in London. He tapped his British contacts to help him iron out conflicting school schedules so that Syracuse students (the program is now open to non-Syracuse engineering students also) could study at The City University of London for the appropriate Syracuse credits. "We've always insisted it be a year because we want them to have an authentic experience and do the exams with the British students at the end of the year," LaGraff says. The program steadily attracts some 20 students a year and is now offering a semester in Madrid.

Coordinating sequential courses has always been a challenge in sending engineering students overseas, which is why URI's International Engineering Program incorporates a fifth year of study and a B.A. in a language. German professor Grandin came up with the idea in 1987 with then-engineering Dean Hermann Viets (now at Milwaukee School of Engineering). "We had a meeting of the minds and decided that we were doing very little to prepare engineers for the global economy," Grandin recalls. The program started by sending fourth-year students to the Technical University of Braunschweig in Germany for a semester and then on to a six-month internship somewhere in Germany. Today, the program has expanded to include French and Spanish options with a Chinese program in the works. And last fall, URI introduced an international Ph.D. program with the Technical University of Braunschweig.

Perhaps most comprehensive of all international engineering programs is Georgia Tech's new International Plan. While the school has had a long history of sending engineering students abroad-roughly one-third of graduates have some experience outside the United States-the degree-long program introduced last fall integrates international studies into a major. In what school administrators hope will become their signature program, the plan requires coursework in global economics, international relations, regional interests and a capstone course. Students must gain a proficiency in a language and spend at least two terms abroad. The program is designed so students will graduate in four years with an International Plan designation on their diploma. Vice Provost Lohmann says the plan will immerse students in another culture, rather than just expose them to it. "It's not an add-on, it's integrated into the context of your major," he says. Because of the language requirement, most participants will have to join the program during their freshman year. Georgia Tech hopes to enroll 50 percent of its students in the International Plan by the year 2010. Lohmann acknowledges the goal is ambitious but says that instilling "global competence" is critical to the education of engineers today. "Students need to graduate with an understanding of how their profession is practiced on a global scale."