3. POSTGRADUATE EDUCATION and RESEARCH

3.1. Professional Master's Programs

• Canadian engineering faculties should plan to provide an array of professional master's programs each requiring about 3 terms or one calendar year of full-time-equivalent study.

• Professional master's programs should be designed to meet identified needs of the major career paths of engineering graduates: engineering design and manufacturing, engineering management and engineering research and development. Some universities might provide professional master's programs to meet specific needs of important sectors of Canadian industry.

• Each professional master's program should have breadth in content. Many should be interdisciplinary.

• Each of these master's programs should be presented at a similar level of intellectual challenge.

• The entrance requirements for all of these master's programs should be the same and should be similar to those of other professional programs in universities such as management and law.

• With the availability of these master's programs and the progressive evolution of Canadian industry, it is expected that, in the future, a majority of engineering graduates will proceed to a master's degree either immediately on graduation or following a period of engineering experience.

• In time, as the proportion of graduates achieving a master's degree increases, a professional master's degree may become a requirement for full professional qualification.

• It should be made convenient for students to enter these postgraduate programs at a career stage when the experience would be most valuable. For a program in engineering management, this might optimally be at about five or more years after graduation. For an engineering design program, it might follow the undergraduate studies or might follow a period of industrial experience. For those in engineering research programs, it is frequently opportune to enter immediately after graduation.

• To meet the needs of those engineers employed in industry, it is desirable that there be opportunity to take these master's programs on a part time basis, either in short periods of a few weeks duration or in late afternoon, evening, weekend or short-course sessions. In some localities, it may be desirable to present courses at a convenient industrial site rather than on university premises.

• In some institutions, it may be desirable to institute combined Bachelors/Masters programs, integrating the professional masters content with the undergraduate studies.

RECOMMENDATION 22: Canadian engineering faculties should plan to restructure their graduate studies to introduce or expand appropriate postgraduate professional master's programs.

RECOMMENDATION 23: Each professional master's program should be designed to meet identified needs in one of the major career paths of engineering graduates: engineering design and manufacturing, engineering management, and engineering research and development. Some programs might be focused on the needs of a specific sector of Canadian industry.

RECOMMENDATION 24: Each professional masters program should be about 3 terms or one calendar year in duration.

RECOMMENDATION 25: Each of the professional master's programs should be presented at a similar level of intellectual challenge.

RECOMMENDATION 26: The arrangements and funding support for these professional masters programs should be such as to make them convenient for students to enter when the experience would be most valuable. Also access to the programs by part-time students should be facilitated.

RECOMMENDATION 27: In designing the professional masters programs, emphasis should be placed on developing engineering graduates with the appropriate attributes and potential to play a major role in establishing new enterprises, restructuring existing processes and developing new products and services.

3.1.1 - Master's in Engineering Design

3.1.2 - Master's in Engineering Management

3.1.3 - Master's in Engineering Research and Development