SEAS focuses grad programs on jobs

A new master's degree program in the School of Engineering and Applied Science next fall will continue the graduate school's recent trend of preparing engineers for professional rather than research-based careers. Since the Engineering School rolled out its first professional-minded master's program in the mid-1980s, quite a few new ones have made their debuts to great fanfare. The Master's of Science and Engineering in Virtual Environments is a one-year program designed to "train those individuals who will produce and exploit virtual environment technology as we move into the 21st century," according to an Engineering School brochure. Combining the fields of architecture, fine arts, computer science, engineering and communications, the program -- based in the Computer and Information Science Department -- includes courses in both the Graduate School of Fine Arts and the Annenberg School, CIS Professor Norman Badler said. The proposal states that the program -- expected to consist of 12 to 15 students in its first year -- is modeled on comparable programs at the University of Illinois at Chicago and Georgia Tech. "Ours is the only program of this type in the geographic region and the only one with the unique Penn flavor," Badler said. The idea for professionally oriented master's degree programs came in the mid-1980s, when a master's degree was seen as a "consolation prize -- something you get on the way to or instead of a Ph.D.," Engineering Graduate Dean Dwight Jaggard said. "This was not serving the need of practical engineers looking for a broad engineering background," he added. The first professional master's degree program -- the Executive Master's of Science in Engineering Program -- began about 10 years ago. Its goal is to educate Engineering students in emerging technologies, leadership and business-related disciplines. "Most students in the program do not focus on the technologies that we are exposed to, but are instead learning to manage and leverage these technologies in the companies for which we work," said Engineering graduate student Michael Zink, who is in the program. Beginning with a dozen students, the original professional program now hosts 165, Jaggard said. In recent years, the professional master's degree programs have grown at a rapid rate, with the introduction of Telecommunications and Networking last year and Biotechnology this fall. In addition to being professionally oriented, these programs are interdisciplinary, spanning across fields both within and outside the Engineering School, Undergraduate Dean John Vohs said. While the Telecommunications and Networking program includes courses in both the Engineering and Wharton Schools, the Biotechnology program draws on classes in the Engineering School and the School of Arts and Sciences, Vohs added. In its first year, the Biotechnology program -- consisting of 15 students -- is off to a positive start. "Companies can't get enough people who are trained in this area," Jaggard said. In addition, already established master's programs -- including Bioengineering and Electrical Engineering -- are becoming more professional in nature, Jaggard said. "As of this fall, Bioengineering has revamped their professional master's program to components which are broader than just engineering," he said. And also in its first full year is the Professional Master's Degree Program in Electrical Engineering -- students come to Penn for two fall semesters, and for the eight months in between they intern at either Lucent Technologies, Texas Instruments or Lockheed Martin. "To prepare someone in industry, the best way to do that is in industry," Faculty Program Coordinator Kenneth Laker said. "The most important feature of this program is to give students a competitive advantage at the workplace." Jaggard believes that this idea -- taking master's programs and detaching them from doctoral programs -- will experience extraordinary growth over the next several years.