Frequently Asked Questions

E-Lead is an accredited engineering degree that blends the technical skills of UTEP's renowned Engineering core with E-Lead’s engineering courses, which combine engineering technical content with business, innovation, entrepreneurship, leadership, and communications. Our ABET accredited Engineering Degree equips you to understand the "bigger picture" of engineering and its impact in the broader context of the world.

Along with technical engineering skills, Engineering Innovation and Leadership includes a focus on learning how to innovatively approach problems, inside or outside of engineering, while building leadership and professional skills. Our students learn to work within a team, communicate effectively with their peers and supervisors, lead and follow, as well as develop their conflict resolution skills. Throughout the degree, students will give many presentations to their classmates, faculty, and industry board members, learning to give information in an effective, polished, self-confident manner.

• Flexible degree plan in your area of interest
• Small student to faculty ratio in a cohort environment
• Broader context/ real world view of engineering
• Project based learning
• Very strong community environment with peers
• Entrepreneurial mindset
• Exclusive prototyping lab
• Exclusive studio space
• Personal interactions with industry mentors
• Active leadership framework
• Highly marketable communication skills and professional development

All E-Lead classes are held in the E-Lead Studios. Your schedule on Goldmine may assign a classroom to your E-Lead class, but the best practice is to always report to the Studios.

The E-Lead Studios are located on the first floor of the classroom building!

E-Lead provides a “studio” (learn as you do), inclusive (all thought processes are welcome), and iterative (constantly improving) learning environment. E-Lead is not about giving lectures on what you need to read and solve in a textbook; it is about tackling significant projects that allow many paths to be explored to achieve a specific result. Most projects happen in a team environment in which collaboration and communication are essential.

All E-Lead courses are taught within the E-Lead Studios. This is a flexible space to interact with both faculty and students in an environment where learning happens in concert with other students and the faculty as guides/mentors.

Leadership within E-Lead is taught by example and practice. Leadership development is integrated into all E-Lead courses. Initially, we coach you through exploring your identity as a leader. Then, team experiences allow you to explore how you best work with others to accomplish a shared goal.Leadership is about developing your Character (who you are), Competence (what you know), and Capacity (what you can make happen). Specifically, we work on the how a leader models the way, challenges the process, inspires a shared vision, enables others to act, and encourages the heart.

The student to faculty ratio in E-Lead is less than 30 to 1. Our intentionally small class sizes allow for more personal interaction with our professors, allowing them to be more accessible and serve as mentors, rather than just sources of information, and a close sense of community with your classmates. This sense of community is huge in E-Lead. It pays off both inside and outside the classroom. Having a diverse group of peers to study, work, and hang out with turns the department into a “home away from home,” giving you a comfortable place to exist in the large, often anonymous, University environment.

Every single E-Lead course involves at least one engineering project. These projects, which vary in complexity by course and year of study, are accomplished in teams, and require significant engineering, research, organization, and planning to complete. E-Lead focuses on learning by doing, so your learning takes place in the context of engineering projects, putting the skills you are developing into action every semester.

A “Concentration” is the traditional field of Engineering you want to study within the E-Lead major. Engineering Innovation and Leadership offers many traditional engineering Concentrations. In addition to the UTEP Engineering Core and the Engineering Innovation and Leadership Core, you will take additional technical Engineering courses in your area of interest (Concentration). For more information take a look at this video. You can also find out more about the courses you take under each Concentration by visiting the catalog here.

• Engineering Innovation
• Biomedical Engineering
• Civil Engineering
• Computer Science
• Electrical Engineering
• Mechanical Engineering
• Metallurgy and Materials Engineering
• Others to come …

If you have a passion that lies outside of engineering that would benefit from the skills and knowledge gained from an engineering mindset you can use your 15 allotted Emphasis “elective” hours to explore and take classes in that subject! However, these emphasis hours must stay within one subject that UTEP offers as a minor! Check out possible UTEP minors here. See which areas have minors.

Yes. This “hands-on” experience comes in the form of projects that require students to not only deal with feasibility (can it work), but also viability (can it pay for itself), and desirability (do people want what we create) – these three aspects of feasibility, viability, and desirability are the core of what we call Innovation. We seek to create a learning environment within our E-Lead Studios where products are built, tested, and iterated (continuously improved) on. Because building things takes tools, materials, and space, E-Lead has a fully stocked prototyping lab in the Studios that is reserved exclusively for the use of our students to complete their projects and learn as they create.

Absolutely yes! E-Lead is a fully accredited ENGINEERING degree just like all other UTEP Engineering degrees. The Engineering Innovation and Leadership degree plan includes UTEP's Common Core classes and Engineering Core classes across several other engineering departments that you will take through your Concentration. Our students take the same math and science courses required of all Engineering degrees. Our engineering requirements are consistent with all other engineering degrees, both at UTEP and across the United States, that are ABET accredited. Unlike the other UTEP engineering degrees, we require two professional experiences (internships, etc) to graduate.

During your first year, we focus heavily on two key aspects of future success in both your academic and professional career: learning to thrive outside of your comfort zone and developing your unique identity. The important thing about all of this is that we do it in the context of learning about engineering, innovation, and leadership.

In your second year of E-Lead you can expect more technical classes: Modeling and Simulation and Engineering Measurements. In these classes you will learn how to use Matlab, implement code, and understand and create mathematical models for different scenarios, along with a continuation of your learning of leadership and business acumen.

It’s all in the name. Your first semester class is People to Products. In this class you will learn to assess the needs of a community to create a product that they will benefit from. Then, in your second semester class, Products to People, you will learn what innovation and entrepreneurship truly mean as you learn the basics of developing a product and the keys to forming a company to sell that product. At the end of the year, you will have designed your own start-up and be able to decide whether it’s worth pursuing.

We strive to help you be prepared to have a real, positive impact by giving you opportunities to work on engineering projects. Now it’s time to work on a project with lasting contributions that benefit a real stakeholder or company. In this class you will combine everything you have learned throughout your degree—from the technical skills, to the personal skills, to the professional skills—to design an engineering solution for a well-known company and present your findings to stakeholders and higher-ups of that company.

Engineering Innovation and Leadership is a 4-year degree. There are 9 required E-Lead courses, one for each semester (+ one additional course). However, we do believe in doing things in the right order, and in taking the time necessary to do things right. For this reason, and because each one builds upon the last, these courses must be taken in order – that is, in series, not parallel. However, if needed, and upon certain conditions and with the approval of the Chair of the Department, you may be able to “double up” (take more than one E-Lead class at a time).

An internship is work experience offered by an organization for a limited period of time, typically 3 months. These experiences are done over summer breaks. Let’s face it, most companies want to hire people with some professional experience. Most engineering students use internships to gain experience and kickstart their career after graduation. Therefore, we have folded that experience into your degree to help you prepare for life after graduation. We can help you find an internship in your area of interest (i.e., it doesn’t have to be in engineering), and we post upcoming opportunities in the office. Our professors can write letters of recommendation and help you learn to network.

We require all students to participate in two internships or professional practices before they graduate.

The short answer is: almost any kind you want. A degree in Engineering Innovation and Leadership will provide you with a broad range of skills that can be utilized in many industries. Jobs in technical engineering, project management, quality analysis, field assessment, graduate schools inside and out of engineering, or your own startup all require the skills you learn in E-Lead. These skills also translate into the business world, non-profit organizations, education, and product design industries. You can also go on to pursue a Master's degree or Ph.D. For some examples of our graduates’ careers, click here.

Engineering Innovation and Leadership can be described as an “interdisciplinary” engineering degree. By that, we mean that you have a wider variety of engineering courses than other engineering majors. In addition to that, you understand how the “real world” of business and people affect the ability to create successful products, processes, and projects. You know how to be results-oriented, an effective communicator, and see the big picture, all while developing the problem-solving skills of an engineering degree.

Often, employers are looking for talent beyond just a “major.” They want to know that an employee can handle a variety of challenges. Given the breadth of courses and experience you develop in E-Lead, you can use those experiences to give examples of how you bring more to the table than a typical engineer.

The Engineering Innovation and Leadership degree offers a scholarship to all of our students. This scholarship is given once a year, from the generous support of Bob and Diane Malone, and the amount goes up each year of your college career. The only requirements are

1. that you be enrolled as an Engineering Innovation and Leadership major,
2. have a GPA of 3.0 or higher, and
3. be enrolled full time (12 credit hours or more).

There are no applications and no essays required. If you qualify, the scholarship is automatic in the Spring semester of each year (4 years maximum).

Every student has now been assigned an Academic Advisor who will assist you with course selection, general questions and link you to various resources.

Use the instructions on the image to find the name of your advisor.

Once you know who your advisor is, follow the instructions below to schedule an appointment.

If you are currently an engineering student, go to your Blackboard organizations and find your major.

If you do not see your major in the organizations tab, please reach out to ENGRAdvising@utep.edu. When sending an email, please include the following information:

• Full name
• Student ID
• Current Major
• Phone number you can be reached at
• Describe in detail the issue you are experiencing or ask the question(s) you have

If you still have questions, please contact us: 915-747-5460 or ENGREdge@utep.edu

Go to this link to find your advising packet!