To Our Students:  Whether your future professional goals include:

• “Changing the world”
• Working on cutting edge technology, or
• Satisfying your entrepreneurial spirit

you are going to need both knowledge and practical experience. The College of Engineering’s new Multidisciplinary Design (MD) Program and its minor is targeted to help you create an educational program that puts open-ended, real-world experience as a core element, start getting practical experience early, and even to help motivate the critical classroom knowledge you are also learning along the way!  Consider the impact of describing to a potential employer or on your graduate school application the experiences you have gotten after two, three, or even four years of working on a multidisciplinary team focused on real-world development problems! This isn’t fluff! Students who leave Michigan with this experience as part of their education have a level of “wiseness” that really jumps starts their professional career, helps them better know what they really want to do, and prepares them to be life-long learners and innovators in ways simply not possible from classroom knowledge alone!  This is the Michigan Difference!

The MD Minor is one of three new and exciting co-curricular Engineering opportunities here at Michigan (see also Center for Entrepreneurship Certificate, International Minor) and if you would like to learn more please start by reviewing our various links on this website.

To Our Potential Sponsors and Collaborators: The most common remark from our alumni has been “I wish I had the opportunity to do this when I was in school!” Our friends in industry and the professional world see the MD Program and Minor as being “right on target” by helping prepare students with the practical experience that gets them going much sooner and better able to tackle challenging development problems when they graduate. It helps them develop a broader systems perspective while maintaining a strong depth of knowledge.

This is not something we are doing in isolation. Your mentorship and sponsorship enable the students to gain a set a knowledge that is just not possible in the classroom. If you think you can help, please check out our links to learn more or to contact us!

Brian E. Gilchrist
Director, Multidisciplinary Design Programs
Professor, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Dept
Professor, Atmospheric, Oceanic, and Space Sciences Dept