Work-in-Progress: A Complementary Training Program in Control and Automation Engineering and its Role in Undergraduate/Master's Program Integration

Abstract

© American Society for Engineering Education, 2022.Federal grants have been supporting many Brazilian engineering master's students. The availability of these grants is dwindling, so universities on one hand and master's candidates on the other have been looking for alternatives to obtain master's degrees with less grant dependence/support. On the technical university side, this led to the emergence of options to start a master's program in the last semesters of the typical 10-semester undergraduate program. From the university's side and from the student's side it is interesting that such integrated effort is time and resource-efficient. To support this, at Instituto Tecnológico de Aeronáutica (ITA), a new Complementary Training Program (CTP) in Control and Automation Engineering was started in August 2021, serving mainly Mechanical, Electrical, Aeronautical, and Computer Engineering students. The standard goal of CTPs in Brazil is to extend the major undergraduate training in a similar way as a US minor does. Thus, the baseline purpose of the new program is to provide undergraduate students with a complementary education, transversal to engineering courses, which enables them to work as Control and Automation engineers, without the need for training supplementation after graduation. However, by offering a well-designed course choice, this program will also allow for: (a) extending the scope of undergraduate studies, and (b) deepening specific topics that are already part of the undergraduate curriculum. In the scope of the Institute's undergraduate and master's degree integration initiative, this second particularity (item b) may yield anticipated credits for a master's program. Specific features of the program may further benefit students aiming at a master's degree. This paper details the structure of the CTP and the gains expected in terms of incentives for the Institute's Mechanical-Aeronautical Engineering as well as the Electronics and Computer Engineering Master's Programs.