Tarleton to begin offering Mechanical Engineering degree for 2017-18 catalog
About seven students will graduate with a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering in May 2018.
February 6, 2017
Tarleton State University students can now earn a bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering after the
Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board approved the degree through the department of Engineering and Computer Science.
“This degree deals with the mechanical systems; a lot of the students in the region are mechanically inclined and they can relate more to this degree,” Dr. Denise Martinez, Department Head and Associate Professor said.
Tarleton also offers electrical and civil engineering degrees.
“This degree is broadly applicable to students,” Martinez said. “Students that graduate with this degree can go into manufacturing and aerospace.”
According to Martinez, it was hard to get this program approved and it took multiple efforts. Other schools have engineering programs and it’s hard to get it through the programming board, because of that issue.
“In 2000, the program wanted the Mechanical Engineering degree, but it wouldn’t go through. We tried again in 2009 and again it didn’t work. We tried again when we got the civil and electrical degrees and it got closer, but nothing would stick,” Martinez said.
“We updated our proposal with lots more workforce data, state and national STEM data, plus lots of support from the administration, our advisory board and many others. This time, we demonstrated that we could work with and do mainstream engineering programs and this time it stuck.”
The program will officially appear in the Fall 2017 catalog, but it has been incubated through the physics track. A handful of students are already taking classes that have them on track for majoring in Mechanical Engineering. Even though it’s new, about seven students will be graduating in May 2018 with this degree.
After the first students graduate, the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology, Inc., will come in. According to Martinez, some places won’t hire you if you don’t come with accreditation, so she hopes this program will get accredited really fast.
“I just want to thank all of the entities that made this happen from the Engineering Advisory Board, University Administration and all the way down to the department faculty and everyone involved. It took a lot of communication and the Coordinating Board was very helpful as well as the A&M system,” Martinez said. “We’re excited. It’ll be a really popular program.”