Article by Russell Lyons (Q16)

You may have wondered, “Are there any other educational programs out there similar to QUEST?” Many of us within the program like to boast “QUEST is best”. With a great group of students, faculty, alumni, and corporate sponsorship, it is tough to argue. However, like any great organization, it is important to continually evaluate and improve the offerings of QUEST. Comparing and learning from competitors is a crucial part of evaluating oneself.

The QUEST staff began this process last summer when it hosted a workshop which was attended by 9 other universities and organizations with programs similar to QUEST. These programs are classified as Multidisciplinary Engineering, Technology and Management (METM) programs. The workshop participants took the approach of designing an ideal METM program. The differences and similarities between the workshop attendees and other schools with METM-like programs are interesting to look at.

Two programs that are quite similar to QUEST are the Technology & Management programs at Georgia Tech and the University of Illinois. Both of these programs are very team-oriented and admit students in cohorts; however, students do not apply until spring of sophomore year. These two schools require students to take a few more courses for a total of 22 credits compared with the 15 credits in QUEST. Dr. Bailey recently made a visit to Georgia Tech to interact more with the faculty of that program. A few differences he noticed were that their IQ-type events are more required, they do not have an organization similar to QSO, and that they lack alumni strength. It is understandable that their program does not have some of these community related attributes because they were only established in 2007. One area that QUEST may be able to learn from these two programs is that they have more participation from their corporate partners, including involvement in shaping the curriculum. One other program that jumped out to me was the Management &Technology program at University of Pennsylvania. This program is slightly different in that it has existed for 30 years and that students apply as high school students for a chance to pursue a degree in both engineering and business.

After becoming aware of other programs out there, so what? I am glad to see that QUEST is taking the initiative to organize events like the METM workshop last summer. Learning from others and creating a larger community that we can connect with is an excellent opportunity for our program. Maybe it could lead to some type of inter-college competition between programs in the future. We should all be excited about the opportunities it presents for us and future QUESTers.