Engineering Students to See the World

By Maggie Master

The signing ceremony between Hong Kong Polytech and CUA.

Engineering students with an interest in the global classroom may soon get a chance to pack their bags — and their T-squares — to participate in an undergraduate rite of passage previously elusive to them: a semester abroad.

Historically, juniors in the CUA School of Engineering resigned themselves to trading in a study-abroad program for a semester in Pangborn Hall in an engineering classroom. Like nursing programs and other academic pursuits that require specific, intensive science and math courses, engineering requirements made it difficult, if not impossible, for CUA engineering students to experience life, culture and academics in another country.

But thanks to an aggressive partnering with several top Asian engineering universities, CUA engineering majors will have the option, as early as next year, to spend a semester in Taiwan, Vietnam or China. Such programs would allow CUA students to attend a partner university in one of these countries, while paying tuition at CUA.

The architect of this information- and student-sharing, Charles Nguyen, dean of the engineering school, has traveled extensively throughout Asia over the last two years, forging relationships with university presidents and faculty and crafting memoranda of understanding with these engineering institutions. Some options being considered include semester-abroad and dual-attendance programs such as a 2+2 bachelor program, with two years of study at CUA and two years at a partner school, and programs enabling a student to simultaneously receive a bachelor’s degree at one university and a master’s degree at the partnering university, known as a 4+1 bachelor’s/master’s program. The partnership will also encourage faculty collaborations between schools, including sabbatical leaves and joint-authorship of academic papers.

These partnerships will provide a two-way street, allowing for the best and brightest foreign engineers to attend CUA for a semester — and hopefully entice them to return for graduate school. Drawing qualified graduate students from other countries to pursue master’s programs and doctoral (Ph.D.) degrees at CUA is a long-term objective of these agreements, according to Dean Nguyen, who says there is a shortage of qualified graduate students to fill these degree programs. And given that approximately 70 percent of the faculty members at these partner universities earned their advanced degrees at major U.S. universities, says Nguyen, it makes sense to advertise CUA as a top choice for foreign engineers looking to continue their education in the United States.

This fall, the dean’s city-hopping schedule packed six universities in four cities into just 11 days. The trip began in Beijing at what Nguyen refers to as the “Harvard and MIT of China,” Tsinghua and Peking universities, home of the country’s most prestigious engineering schools. Accompanied by Professor Frank Pao, the engineering school’s director of development of international engineering programs, Nguyen then traveled from Beijing to Hong Kong, stopping along the way in Nanjing, Yangzhou and Shanghai.  At each school, the dean met with university presidents, as well as deans and engineering professors, offering presentations about CUA, its academic programs and partnership opportunities to each school.

As a result of this most recent trip, the dean signed memoranda of understanding for collaboration with Southeast University in Nanjing and Hong Kong Polytechnic University in Hong Kong.

Dean Nguyen received an honorary professorship from President Liu of Southeast University in Nanjing, China.

Last March, Nguyen and two faculty members traveled to Taipei, Taiwan, to sign agreements for engineering collaboration with three prominent universities: Fu Jen Catholic University (FJCU), Chung Yuan University (CYCU) and St. John’s University (SJU). Earlier, in May 2005, the dean traveled to Saigon Technology University (STU) in Vietnam, where he signed a memorandum of understanding for future collaboration between STU and CUA’s School of Engineering.

As a result of the agreement signed during the dean’s trip to Taiwan, two FJCU faculty members visited CUA this past June to meet with Nader Namazi, Ph.D., chair of the CUA Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, and members of his department. Since that June visit, the two departments have been working to develop a collaboration agreement on student-exchange as well as faculty and research collaboration.

Dean Nguyen says he plans to ease his globetrotting travels after a visit to schools in Bangalore, India, sometime in the next year. But his choice of partnering countries and universities is strategic and follows one hotly debated business trend: outsourcing.  Asian countries, along with India, have become the major recipient of a diffusion of engineering work as more American companies shift production overseas.

“We need to look to the future and prepare for that,” Nguyen says.  “We’re going to train our students to not only become competent engineers, but also to have great potential to become managers and leaders in the engineering global market.”  He is confident that a CUA student who boasts engineering-abroad studies in China, Vietnam or another foreign country will make them a more attractive candidate in the professional world.

And one CUA engineering professor, in particular, may take some pride in the dean’s most recent pick of partnering schools: Associate Professor of Civil Engineering Lu Sun is a graduate of one of the engineering school’s latest partners, Southeast University in Nanjing, China.

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