Vol. 7, No. 5: January 16, 2001
Master of Engineering
in Professional Practice
Reaches Working Engineers at a Distance
by Jennifer Smith, TTT Editor
Working engineers who are seeking a graduate degree to benefit their professional development have a new option to choose from. The Master of Engineering in Professional Practice (MEPP) program offered at UW-Madison gives working students a chance to earn a master's in two years of focused coursework. The program stresses personal, technical, and organizational skills; computer-aided analysis, design, and engineering; and other skills like customer support, personal productivity, and working in an international environment. The master's degree is offered through the Department of Engineering Professional Development in the College of Engineering. While distance programs for students who work full-time are no longer a novelty, several aspects of this program make it stand out. The hallmarks of the program include the professional backgrounds of the students, dedicating a full-time counselor to assist them, the senior faculty who provide instruction, and the cohort model through which students move through the program. As program director Wayne Pferdehirt states, "We have found that having all students admitted in a given year progress through the program together enables a truly supportive learning community to develop. Students build strong relationships, help each out as they work together in courses, and offer each other emotional support when they feel like the 'tank is running low'." Pferdehirt credits the cohort model and the program's proactive support for students as the primary reasons why MEPP courses have a completion rate of over 98%, far ahead of norms for distance education programs. In order to gain admittance to the program, applicants must have at least four years of post-bachelor's engineering experience. Students currently in the program have between five and thirty years of professional experience. Because of this, students bring a range of personal experiences that can enrich class discussion and they can better relate course content to actual workplace situations. MEPP students work for firms like GE Medical Systems, Motorola, Hewlett Packard, Kohler, and John Deere. Although the majority live in Wisconsin, fourteen other states are represented and there are also three students living in other countries: Mexico, England, and Israel. Assisting these students is a full-time counselor for the program, Karen Al-Ashkar, who is a liaison for both matriculated students and applicants. Al-Ashkar helps students with concerns about academic performance and how to balance work and academic responsibilities, among other things. Program director Pferdehirt feels that having a counselor dedicated to just MEPP students is both a boon and a distinguishing feature of the program. He says, "MEPP students affectionately call Karen ‘MEPP Mom.’ Karen’s personal, proactive care for students concretely expresses to students our commitment to their success and our commitment to removing roadblocks and distractions from their learning." MEPP instructors are senior faculty at UW-Madison and outside institutions like the University of California at Berkeley and UW-Milwaukee. All instructors have had significant experience teaching at a distance before signing on with MEPP. Also, instructors run their courses in pilot versions before they are incorporated into the MEPP curriculum. Instructors are also well aware of the needs of students who are full-time professionals. The MEPP program appeals to students who are either not near a campus where they would wish to earn a graduate degree, or who can't accommodate the time and distance of commuting. Many of these working engineers also travel frequently for their jobs, so a distance format lets them keep up wherever they may be from week to week. The master's program is designed as a fixed, two-year curriculum with no electives at this point. Students enter as a cohort and progress through their coursework together. Entering MEPP classes are limited to thirty students, ensuring that class discussions do not become unwieldy and that a glut of students does not diminish individual attention. Students need to come to UW-Madison's campus just once a year for a four-to-six-day summer residency that helps build community among the students and prepares them for the coursework to come during the academic year. Courses are taught using a variety of tools, from WebCT to weekly synchronous teleconferences via Placeware, traditional textbooks, course study guides, and CD-ROMs. Students also have online library access, and Pferdehirt comments that the staff of Wendt Library (UW-Madison's engineering library) has been very helpful. For example, if a student is trying to track down a journal article that is not already available through an online database of full-text articles, library staff can scan the needed article, place it on the web, and give the student a URL to retrieve it. Things are running smoothly in MEPP's second year of operation. The original cohort is slated to graduate in May 2001, with the second MEPP class enrolled to capacity. The spring 2001 semester will include two new courses that were run as pilots in fall 2000. Course evaluations have thus far revealed students' high level of satisfaction with their courses. For more information, visit the MEPP website or call program director Wayne Pferdehirt at (608) 265-2361 or counselor Karen Al-Ashkar at (608) 262-0133. |