Need Help, from Mentors for Research

FIRST General Forum
1

I need a little help from the college students, engineers, teachers, mentors… So I don’t leave the high school students out because your opinions are also useful, I have a separate thread for all of you.

I’m involved with a program at my University (University of Maryland: College Park) called Quest (Quality Enhancement Systems and Teams). It is a highly selective 3 year joint Engineering / Business / Computer Science program. Currently we only accept 46 students a year (which is out of ~1000 eligible students). We are expanding the program right now and looking to bring in more students next year. Quest is a very special program to me and it has greatly enhanced my FIRST experience since I have been in college. I’m currently working on a team to study community within the Quest program because the whole dynamic of the closeness of the program will change in the coming years. Mike Martus has said the past few years at the Web Hugs that it is important for us to continue to build the FIRST community and these boards is one of the central places for exchanging information. So my questions to the mentors are:

Do you know of any programs (preferably at the undergrad level, but we are looking into grad level too) that combine cross disciplined learning? And where are they located? And were you involved in the program?
Also how do these discussion boards affect the FIRST community?

Thanks for your help, and good luck to everyone at the competitions.

Steve
If you have any questions about the program feel free to e-mail or pm me or look at the program site at http://www.rhsmith.umd.edu/quest

2

The University of Rhode Island’s International Engineering program is very simmilar to the program that you have described.

This program combines engineering and either German, French or Spanish undergraduate degrees. It is a five year program with one year of study and internship abroad. Forty of the students in this program live together in a fraternity house on campus, shareing classes and projects together.

The goal of this program is to combine the language and engineering degrees to produce students with capabilities of competing for engineering jobs all over the globe.

Many huge international companies support this program with funding and internship positions for the students while abroad. These companies also look to IEP graduates first when filling positions in the international business and engineering community.

http://www.uri.edu/iep is the program website

Best of luck to everyone!!

Robert Zeuge