Future engineers: leading the charge in the service sector

The demand for engineers to support the service sector is growing, and academic programs are needed to prepare students for these careers. This need was recognized at Michigan Tech and led to a dynamic effort by faculty members from different disciplines to develop a curriculum for Service Systems Engineering that integrates business, engineering, and the sciences and serves as a model for other universities. This is an exciting degree program that takes curriculum development beyond its current boundaries and branches into a new direction. In this paper, efforts related to the development of the curriculum will be described, as will the challenges faced by the project team to facilitate interdisciplinary education. The successes to date will be highlighted along with the lessons learned, and collaboration experiences with other university faculty members on curriculum development.