Multidisciplinary engineering technology: Rapidly responding to educational opportunities

Abstract

In the Fall of 2016, the Department of Engineering Technology and Industrial Distribution (ETID) at Texas A&M University opened a new degree program entitled Multidisciplinary Engineering Technology (MXET). This new program is structured to give students a strong underpinning in both the electronics and mechanical engineering technology disciplines. The curriculum then culminates in a 29-hour focus area that cus-tomizes the degree plan for a particular area of the job market. Currently, the degree has a single focus area in Mechatronics, preparing students for careers in the design, develop-ment, implementation, and support of elec-tromechanical systems that are controlled through embedded hardware and software. The MXET degree is now being expanded to include new additional focus areas. The first one of these areas is STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) Teacher Preparation. In collaboration with the College of Education, a MXET focus area is being customized to produce graduates who can sit for their Mathematics/Science/ Engineering certification and who can teach at the junior high and high school levels. This new focus will be available starting in the Fall of 2017. The second new focus area is in Entrepreneurial Product Development. This specialization is for the unique student who is interested in starting a technology/ product-based company, and the goal is to allow the student to incubate the new company while attending courses and finishing his/her degree. This paper will discuss these two new focus areas in detail and will also discuss the more general process of identi-fying new focus areas for MXET and using the program to respond more rapidly to the needs of industry, the state, and the nation.