Master of Engineering with a Concentration in Information Engineering Management
Quick Facts
Entrepreneurship focus on engineering management
Offered 100% online
Engineering undergraduate degree not required
Faculty comprised of employed industry leaders
Flexible classes that fit into work and family schedules
All online students pay in-state tuition
Real-world focus with immediate life/job use
No GRE/GMAT required for admission
The Master of Engineering (MEng) with a Concentration in Information Engineering Management (IEM) is an executive master's degree available 100% online. Our program teaches the entrepreneurship skills to build leaders out of engineers.
Students come to us with high levels of technical expertise and a desire to advance their careers. We train them to apply entrepreneurship, engineering, and business methods to leadership skills, project management, and financial literacy. Our students learn what it's like to view a company from an executive perspective and identify ways to bring innovation to a business. We train them in the areas company executives want to see in their leadership. As a result, many of our graduates have received promotions, successfully lead teams, managed departments, and even started their own companies.
A Curriculum Built on Practical Skills
Leadership
Working in collaborative environments that include colleagues located around the globe, IEM students are given regular team-based assignments to complete using project management skills they are taught in class. Students must apply technology, engineering, and business senses to solve challenging objectives that simulate actual corporate environments and that must be completed on a deadline with limited resources.
Each student is assigned to regular team-based projects, giving you given the opportunity to practice what you are learning as you learn it, with regular faculty feedback.
Each student plays a leadership role in the project's completion through a rotating team structure that encompasses the entire 20-month degree process.
You are assessed through student and faculty evaluation for strengths and weaknesses in your leadership and team-based performance.
You are given an objective analysis of your natural leadership style and suggestions on courses of actions you can take to bolster your weak areas and capitalize on your strengths when taking a leadership role at work.
Foundations of Business
Our students are exposed to an exceptional group of successful men and women who share their expertise through business simulation exercises and regular meetings with executives from leading technology and innovation companies around the globe. Business foundations are also explored through practical steps like using book titles from professional experts as textbooks in the classroom.
Getting a top-down perspective on the running of companies both large and small enhances your ability to see the big picture at your own company. When you can see yourself and your role as an employee in the context of the entire company, you can identify ways to increase your performance and your value as an employee. This increase in value can result in an increased salary, benefits, or uncovered career opportunities; but the most substantial benefit we believe it gives you is the necessary know-how for what running a business requires.
Launching Startups
Every student participates in the annual IEM Startup Challenge. This project gives our students the opportunity to try their hand at real-world innovation by starting a company from nothing, without the financial risk that may otherwise prove a barrier. Many of our alumni use this project as the foundation for actual businesses.
For many of our students, starting a company is an idea that sounds exciting, but they don't know where to begin. Many worry that there is too much personal risk involved. The IEM Startup Challenge was created to remove that risk. In fact, the goal of this challenge is to earn enough money to pay for your degree — and most students succeed at this goal.
First you are asked to evaluate real world situations we provide and suggest improvements. What are some of the world's problems that are going unsolved and what would be a good way to offer a solution?
Once you are walked through the process of developing a solid product or service idea, we teach the basic fundamentals of taking an idea from concept to market. You will experience what it's like to launch a startup by learning key strategies like project management, venture capitalism, bootstrap funding, time management, patents, crowdfunding, hiring team members, and more.
To date, we have had over 14 companies launch into functional businesses as a direct result of the IEM Startup Challenge. Some of our alumni are making hundreds of thousands of dollars annually from ideas they first explored in their IEM classes.
Moving into Management
Technical professionals are great at their specific expertise. Unfortunately, that expertise is rarely communication or knowing how to represent your value to upper management when it comes time for a promotion. We know that each student has skills and talents that can help move them into a successful management position if they are bolstered with the right training to effectively communicate those assets.
In order to bridge the gap between technical professionals and the HR department in charge of choosing who gets considered for promotion, we teach key skills like how to talk with executives, what it takes to be an executive, and the specific steps you need to manage the brand of you.
We firmly believe that each person is, by themselves, a brand. You have a reputation, an image, and a platform that you are either using or losing. Our goal is for our graduating students to know who they are, what value they offer, the monetary value that represents, and how to communicate all of this information to the right people in a professional way that moves them forward, through tools including:
regular networking opportunities
our signature elevator pitch strategy
the Company of One model
the reverse interview, and
public speaking training.
Hear from Our Students
“I decided to earn my degree online because of my busy work schedule and the demands that I have with my current role. It was the best choice for me to do my online studies at UAB.”
Curtis Franklin ‘19
Accreditation
The University of Alabama at Birmingham is accredited by the SACS (Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges) to award baccalaureate, masters, doctorate, and professional degrees. For more information about SACS accreditation, visit the SACS webpage at http://www.sacs.org/.
UAB is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer committed to fostering a diverse, equitable and family-friendly environment in which all faculty and staff can excel and achieve work/life balance irrespective of race, national origin, age, genetic or family medical history, gender, faith, gender identity and expression as well as sexual orientation. UAB also encourages applications from individuals with disabilities and veterans.
