Best of engineering and business, in one
I am delighted to announce an exciting new partnership with the Haas School of Business — the Management, Entrepreneurship, & Technology Program. We’ve teamed up to create an integrated program, with instruction beginning fall 2017, in which students can earn two full B.S. degrees — one in engineering, one in business.
The University is now accepting applications to the M.E.T. Program for fall 2017 freshman admission. We’ll begin by offering two engineering options for the B.S.: either EECS or IEOR, each complemented by a B.S. in business. We hope to add more options over time.
For the inaugural year, we will admit about 30 students, moving up to 50 per year. We will keep the M.E.T. cohorts small, so that our students can benefit from close mentoring and active professional networks. M.E.T students will be encouraged to seek out industry internships and other hands-on opportunities to integrate their learning.
Berkeley is the rare place where you will find top-ranked undergraduate programs in both engineering and business. We are confident that this combined strength, along with our Bay Area–Silicon Valley location, will attract truly exceptional students who want to make a global impact through their initiative and leadership. Some M.E.T. graduates will launch their own startups; others will bring their entrepreneurial mindset to established enterprises.
To me, the M.E.T. Program is another major step in our reinvention of engineering education. Here at Berkeley, engineering follows a social ethos — we take technologies that were originally developed for the elite, and we democratize them. Given the mandate to bring the cost curve down, it is critical for engineers to have a broad view that embraces social contexts, marketplace dynamics and management principles.
An advisory board of Engineering and Business alumni and other advocates helped us launch M.E.T. with their guidance and philanthropy, and we are profoundly grateful. In the coming months, we will recruit program staff and prepare for our fall 2017 incoming class of M.E.T. freshmen.
How, in your view, can we ensure that our M.E.T. students have an integrated understanding of engineering and business — and the skill set to lead technology innovation? We welcome your ideas at dean_sastry@berkeley.edu.
S. Shankar Sastry
Dean and Carlson Professor
College of Engineering, UC Berkeley