I’m a rising senior and my ultimate goal in college is to do an integrated business and engineering (mainly cs/cybersecurity) program in college. I know of a couple programs such as
Does anyone know of any other good programs that offer an undergraduate program with integrating thr engineering and business schools??
Thanks!
Lehigh IBE (Integrated Business & Engineering). Four-year degree with business accreditation by AACSB. Usually requires a fifth year of study to get an ABET-accredited engineering degree. Very selective honors program; admissions are much harder than for Lehigh in general.
Lehigh CSB (Computer Science & Business). Four-year degree, fully accredited in CS by ABET and in business by AACSB. May be the only 4-year degree in the country with such dual accreditation (possible exception: the new Berkeley MET program, see below). Less selective than the IBE program. Rigorous but popular; most Lehigh students who study CS opt for CSB over a plain-vanilla CS degree.
Berkeley MET (Management, Entrepreneurship, and Technology). New program starting in Fall 2017. Four-year degree that yields a BS in Business plus a BS in one of three other fields: Electrical Engineering & Computer Science, Mechanical Engineering, or Industrial Engineering & Operations Research. Admissions are likely to be extremely competitive.
Apparently the acceptance rate is around 2%. See quote below, from: http://www.dailycal.org/2017/04/27/uc-berkeley-implements-new-2-degree-program-college-engineering-haas-school-business/
Note also that Berkeley (like other UC schools) has high out-of-state tuition, and does not offer financial aid to out-of-state students.
Virginia Tech’s BIT program is very well respected but it is not in the engineering school and is not an engineering degree . It is within Pamplin, which is the business school. http://www.pamplin.vt.edu/bit-info-sheet/
In contrast, the Penn, Lehigh, and Berkeley programs listed above are jointly offered through the Business and Engineering schools of their respective universities.
Bucknell has a 5-year dual degree program in engineering and management. It leads to a BS degree in Engineering, plus a Bachelor of Management for Engineers.
Note that the UCB MET program crams about 10 semesters’ worth of course work into 8 semesters (typically 20 credit semesters, as opposed to the usual 15-16 credit semesters) in order to complete the requirements for both majors.
However, students should be aware that a second major in business may be seen as a negative by some engineering employers looking to hire entry-level engineers, since they see it as a signal that the applicant is more interested in a fast track to management rather than doing high quality engineering work. @HPuck35 has posted a number of times in the engineering major forum section about his/her (negative) experience with such engineering + business graduates.
Villanova University has a minor in Engineering Entrepreneurship, and also offers a business minor for non-business majors, as well a 10 week summer program for a business minor. Villanova’s Business school and Engineering programs are both excellent, and would be good choices for students interested in Engineering and Business.
Northeastern has a combined BS in Computer Science/Business. It may not qualify as a full business degree though. NU says that graduates “complete most of the requirements of a business major”, but they don’t appear to get a qualification from the Business School.
http://www.ccis.northeastern.edu/program/bs-combined-major-for-computer-science-and-business/
USC has a BS in Computer Science and Business Administration (CSBA). It may not qualify as a full CS degree though. USC’s plain-vanilla CS degree has ABET accreditation, but the CSBA degree apparently does not.
https://www.cs.usc.edu/academics/undergrad
It is difficult to combine a full traditional engineering or CS degree and a full traditional business degree into a 4-year program. So sometimes 4-year dual programs may be “watered down” in one (or both) respects. This is a situation where professional accreditation may be helpful. The Lehigh CSB degree, for example, can claim both ABET and AACSB accreditation, which will generally convince skeptics that it is a “real” CS degree and a “real” business degree.
Regarding ABET accreditation, the minimum course requirements are for engineering bachelor’s degree programs are:
For computer science, ABET accreditation requires:
So any combination with business must fit the business and general education in under 3/8 (with engineering) or 5/12 (for CS) of the curriculum if the engineering or CS major is ABET accredited. In practice, many engineering bachelor’s degree programs require more than 3/8 of the curriculum in engineering science + design, so that would restrict the amount available for business courses even more, unless the engineering component were scaled back to the minimum. However, non-ABET-accredited CS majors (often because they leave out natural science) may have somewhat more than 5/12 of the curriculum available for business and general education. Of course, the school can also specify overloading to complete both majors in 8 semesters (or 12 quarters).
This assumes that there is no overlap between the ABET curriculum and the business curriculum. In most cases, that would be a reasonable assumption.
However, my understanding is that the Lehigh CSB program includes a sequence of “CS applications in business” courses that are accepted as CS electives by ABET, and also as business electives by AACSB. In effect, they have designed overlap between the CS and business degree curricula, where usually there isn’t any. Since Lehigh has courses that “double count” towards both majors, it makes it easier to meet the dual accreditation requirements.
https://csb.lehigh.edu/csb-sample-course-sequence and https://csb-flowchart.firebaseapp.com/ show Lehigh’s CSB courses.
Looks like the overlapping courses are CSB 311, 312, 313, which are probably more technical versions of IT courses that are sometimes offered in business departments (they would have to be more technical than typical IT courses to count as CS courses for ABET accreditation in CS).
But note that the total credits is still 136. This is greater than the 120 credits Lehigh generally requires, although the CS major specifies 128 credits.
True. Lehigh thinks that up to 18 credits per semester is a “normal” load, so they are OK with four-year programs that require 130+ credits. Electrical Engineering is 134. The Integrated Business and Engineering (IBE) program is 137.
@becca3 At Penn there is also the option of doing an uncoordinated dual degree in engineering and business, as an alternative to the coordinated dual degree option (M&T). M&T is insanely hard to get into, so many people who are not able to get into M&T but are able to get into Penn in general, have the option of applying to pursue an uncoordinated dual degree once they are in. They have the same curriculum as the M&T kids, but they have to take more courses because the M&T program double counts some requirements between the two schools (SEAS, Wharton) while that option is not available to uncoordinated dual degree students.
Hi, how about Drexel’s Business and engineering? Does anyone have any idea?
Stevens Institute, I believe, Also Rowan has Engineering Entrepreneurship or an MBA in Engineering with one extra year
UVA. https://engineering.virginia.edu/departments/engineering-and-society/entrepreneurship-and-business
@starsri Drexel has a Business and Engineering degree and Electrical and Computer engineering is one of the Engineering options.
@Dolemite, I would like to know recent reviews about Drexel Business and engineering program. As such I could find only one in CC in 2009 from Zack dude. Thanks
Georgia Tech has the Denning Technology and Management program, which is a minor for CS, engineering, or business students. Extremely difficult to get in. Even harder to get out. Much like the school itself.