Graduate education with industry relevance

Graduate education has come to be viewed as a multi-faceted process to fulfill the ambitions of many groups seeking academic and professional careers from throughout the world. One facet of graduate education is to provide academic excellence and to develop concentrated research experience to enable the advancement of scientists and engineers. Another major facet is that graduate education contributes to the national goals of developing new technologies, new industries, and new energy sources. More generally, it is expected to increase and sustain the economic wealth of the nation by preparing future leaders in technology, science, engineering, and other contributing fields. More than other disciplines, graduate education in Engineering Technology is heavily focused on the goal of educating for industry relevance. The graduate program in the Electronics and Computer Engineering Technology (ECET) department at ASU's Polytechnic campus emphasizes industry-relevant project experience to satisfy the degree requirements of all of its students. The program's graduates have proven to be very attractive to our industry partners. In addition, the program's active Industry Advisory Hoard (IAB) members provide curricular input on an ongoing basis. Faculty members seek input from IAB members prior to making major changes in course content. This paper presents two case studies to illustrate how the industry-relevant graduate education is delivered at the Arizona State University's Polytechnic campus. One case presents a project that deals with the lead-five solder technologies in semiconductor device packaging. The second case covers a project focused on the use of fuel cell technology as an alternate energy source to power a laptop computer without interruption for a longer lime period. The efforts of both projects have been embraced by respective industry partners. The United States system of graduate education in science, engineering, and technology is arguably the most effective system yet devised for advanced training in the emerging technology fields.