The Enterprise Program is a unique project-based curriculum, housed in the Office of the Associate Provost for Undergraduate Education, available to students from any major at Michigan Tech. Enterprise is student-driven, multidisciplinary teams that work like companies on real-world client projects, whether the deliverable is an innovative product, a pioneering solution, or a much-needed service. The hallmark of the Enterprise Program is the experiential training it provides to students.
Many teams design, manufacture, and test their own prototypes—an end-to-end project development experience. Some teams prepare designs for national competitions, and some projects take teams abroad. The Innovative Global Solutions designed an infant heart annunciator for use in developing countries—and had the opportunity to test the lifesaving device on infants in Ghana.
Teams collaborate with clients from industry, communities and government organizations,
and work closely with a faculty advisor. You could work with organizations like 3M,
General Motors, Kimberly-Clark, and the Department of Energy, among others.
Want specifics? Visit the team listing.
Each enterprise is intended to operate like a real company in the private sector.
Teams perform testing and analyses, make recommendations, manufacture parts, stay within budgets and schedules, and manage multiple projects while faculty and industry members act as coaches and mentors. Teams are often multidisciplinary, mimicking the project team structure in many industries. It is common to find engineering majors working with humanities majors, or biomedical students collaborating with material science students. Collaboration, teamwork, leadership, and the process of bringing an idea to market and community are the foundation of every Enterprise team.
Through Enterprise, students have the opportunity to build up their existing skills, and also add some new ones to their repertoires. Enterprise encourages
- Effective time management
- Leadership, project-management, and team-working skills
- Problem-solving and critical-thinking skills
- Adaptability
- Global awareness
- Business savvy
- Competence in written and oral communication
- Networking with industry leaders
These are just some of our teams’ achievements: