Our award-winning International Program couples a degree in an engineering discipline with a degree in a foreign language. The five-year program includes a year abroad, where students spend a semester studying at a partner university and the remaining time interning at a global engineering firm. 
Armed with foreign language skills and a deep appreciation for other cultures, IEP graduates easily find careers. About a quarter of our undergraduate students participate in the program that boasts a remarkable near 100% job placement rate.
Global Learning: The International Engineering Program
Twenty-five years ago, the University launched a novel experiment: combine engineering and foreign language education to produce graduates with the skills and confidence to compete globally. Now, with students interning and studying in six countries – and nearly all graduates landing jobs – the experiment has proved a remarkable success.
The International Engineering Program counts more than 350 graduates spread around the world working for engineering titans including BMW, the Dow Chemical Co., Johnson & Johnson and more.
It’s a far cry from when the program started in 1987 with just 30 students recruited by John Grandin, then a German professor.
At the time, Grandin saw industry leaders increasingly becoming globalized, and a need for graduates to hold foreign language and technical skills. He dreamed of a program to merge the two worlds. Together, Grandin and then College of Engineering Dean Hermann Viets laid the foundation for the International Engineering Program.
“I felt engineering students were the least likely to be learning a foreign language and studying or interning abroad, but the most likely to need that experience,” Grandin says.
The initiative soon formalized into a five-year program that graduates students with two degrees: one in an engineering discipline and another in German, French, Spanish or Chinese.
Students today also live together in two houses or living-learning communities, where conversations occur in a foreign language as often as in English.
The program has been recognized by the German government and received a Senator Paul Simon Spotlight Award for internationalization of the campus through an innovative engineering curriculum. The Institute of International Education honored the program with its Andrew Heiskell Award for Innovation in International Education.
Today, Sigrid Berka, who took Grandin’s position in 2010, is growing the program. She worked with the German railway company Deutsche Bahn to expand corporate funding for the IEP as well as international workshops and internship opportunities. She is exploring adding Italian or Arabic to the program. The program is also reaching out to high schools worldwide to recruit students from diverse backgrounds.
“There’s always more to be done,” Berka says.