{"id":62653,"date":"2012-01-26T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2012-01-26T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news-draft\/uncategorized\/innovative-engineering-program-earns-prestigious-award\/"},"modified":"2012-01-26T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2012-01-26T00:00:00","slug":"innovative-engineering-program-earns-prestigious-award","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/2012\/01\/innovative-engineering-program-earns-prestigious-award\/","title":{"rendered":"Innovative engineering program earns prestigious award"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\t\tOrganization recognizes 溏心vlog免费B站\u2019s global reach<\/p>\n


\nKINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 January 26, 2012 \u2013 Exitoso. R\u00e9ussit. Erfolgreich. \u6210\u529f.<\/p>\n


\nIn any language, there is only one way to describe the 溏心vlog免费B站\u2019s International Engineering Program: Successful. <\/p>\n


\nThe interdisciplinary curriculum has been a part of the University for 25 years, and has garnered awards before, but in the last year, it has received unprecedented recognition across the globe. Since May, it has won four distinguished awards, including most recently the 2012 Andrew Heiskell Award for Innovation in International Education. The award was announced today.<\/p>\n


\nSigrid Berka, executive director of the International Engineering Program, will accept the award and make a presentation at the Institute of International Education\u2019s headquarters in New York City on March 9. <\/p>\n


\n\u201cThis award will bring lots of good attention to 溏心vlog免费B站. By going to this conference, we are hoping that leaders involved in international education will spread the word,\u201d said Berka, who will attend the conference with Raymond Wright, Dean of Engineering. \u201cIt\u2019s our mission to get others to duplicate this flagship program, because we think this is the right way to educate and prepare our students for the global marketplace.\u201d<\/p>\n


\nThe five-year dual bachelor program gets students to dovetail language studies with their education in engineering by pursuing a B.S. in an engineering discipline and a B.A. in a foreign language. Rather than studying German or Chinese for the sake of learning a foreign language, the program allows students to immediately apply their new language skills to a field of study in which they are driven to excel.<\/p>\n


\n\u201cIt\u2019s a powerful model because it gives language students a purpose,\u201d Berka said. \u201cIf you look at the linguistic gains made when studying abroad, the highest gains apply to students studying and applying the language in an area of passion or interest during long-term immersion programs.\u201d<\/p>\n


\nStudents choose to study Spanish, French, German or Chinese and pair that course of study with a degree in an engineering discipline. They spend the first semester of the fourth year studying abroad at one of the University\u2019s partner schools in Germany, France, Canada, Mexico, Spain or China, and the second semester in a six-month paid internship at one of the University\u2019s 78 partner companies in those countries. <\/p>\n


\nThey may work for companies such as BMW in Germany, Hasbro in Hong Kong or Nokia Siemens in China.<\/p>\n


\nColleen Grinham, a fifth-year student from Marlborough, Mass., spent the last year conducting alternative energy research at the Institute for Sanitary and Environmental Engineering at the Technical University of Braunschweig, and working in an internship at Bayer in Leverkusen, Germany.<\/p>\n


\nDuring her time with Bayer, the aspirin maker, Grinham conducted three two-month rotations working on wastewater treatment, environmental solids processing and civil engineering. <\/p>\n


\n\u201cI always tell other kids that, for some people, the language is the easy part,\u201d Grinham said. \u201cThat\u2019s the way it was for me. I had to work hard on the engineering.\u201d<\/p>\n


\nBerka said the work students do abroad almost universally results in significant progress both with respect to linguistic skills as well as technical skills in the field in which they hope to work.<\/p>\n


\n\u201cThey come back speaking technical terms that I\u2019ve never even heard of as a native German speaker,\u201d Berka said.<\/p>\n


\nThose results, of course, don\u2019t come easily. Berka said it is the drive and dedication of the students, as well as their willingness to step out of their comfort zone that makes them successful.<\/p>\n


\n\u201cIt fits in with the University\u2019s idea of thinking big,\u201d Berka said. \u201cIEP students think big. It\u2019s a challenging program and they must be willing to take a risk. Living abroad means that everyday life routines can become a challenge since you need to tackle them in a foreign environment and in a foreign language. If you\u2019re not a risk taker, you might not be a good fit for this program.\u201d<\/p>\n


\nBut for those who are willing to put in the work and step into a foreign culture to face a demanding curriculum, the rewards are often immediate. The program boasts nearly a 100 percent placement rate. <\/p>\n


\nThat\u2019s because as international barriers to trade, research and engineering break down, students such as those who graduate from the International Engineering Program are in high demand, even for companies that don\u2019t have the global brand recognition of BMW. Japanese-owned Toray Plastics, for instance, is based in Quonset, R.I., but has facilities in Lyon, France and elsewhere. <\/p>\n


\n\u201cManufacturing requires global solutions, even if you\u2019re working locally,\u201d Berka said. <\/p>\n


\nThe students\u2019 success, and by extension the success of the program, is the reason the University has garnered so many awards recently. In addition to the Heiskell Award, the program\u2019s founder and director emeritus, John Grandin, recently received the German Academic Exchange Service Alumni Award for International Exchange on Jan. 12 at the German Consulate in New York City\u2019s United Nations Plaza. Grandin also was given the Association of Departments of Foreign Languages Award for Distinguished Service to the Profession on Jan. 6 at the Modern Language Association\u2019s annual meeting in Seattle. The program was recognized with the 2011 Sen. Paul Simon Spotlight Award for Campus Internationalization on May 5, 2011, at the NAFSA conference in Vancouver.<\/p>\n


\n\u201cAs a student, I\u2019m proud when we get recognition like this because we see appreciation for what we\u2019re doing from someone other than ourselves,\u201d Grinham said. \u201cWe want to leave our mark on the world.\u201d<\/p>\n


\nFor more information about the Heiskell Award or the International Engineering Program, call Berka at (401) 874-4700 or visit uri.edu\/iep.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Organization recognizes 溏心vlog免费B站\u2019s global reach KINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 January 26, 2012 \u2013 Exitoso. R\u00e9ussit. Erfolgreich. \u6210\u529f. In any language, there is only one way to describe the 溏心vlog免费B站\u2019s International Engineering Program: Successful. The interdisciplinary curriculum has been a part of the University for 25 years, and has garnered awards […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-62653","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archives"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62653","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62653"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62653\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62653"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62653"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62653"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}