Hear the Conversation 28:25 – 16.2 mb mp3

“In years past, engineering was our game and our game alone in this country,” MSU College of Engineering Dean Satish Udpa tells Michigan State University President Lou Anna Simon and Spartans Athletic Director Mark Hollis on MSU Today on News/Talk 760 WJR. “The world was our oyster, and we were at the top of our game.

“Now we have competitors around the world, so we need to operate at a much higher level and make sure that our students have the skills to survive and thrive in this new competitive world. One of our challenges is to equip today’s engineers with the skills to move ideas from concept to reality in the marketplace.”

One way the College is meeting these challenges is by immersing students in hands-on design projects as soon as they arrive on campus.

“Our joy comes from preparing our students to compete with the best in the world,” adds Dean Udpa. “But there are opportunities to join hands with competitors to get things done, too.”

Dean Udpa says the College focuses its research on both intermediate and longterm challenges.

“in the next 10 or 15 years, we’ll likely come up with solutions for issues in energy and water,” says Udpa. “But we also want to be where the puck is going to be when working on longterm challenges on issues like how the brain functions and operates.

“MSU is a place where by the diverse nature of the things we do here we can find solutions to problems in the intersection of working on the intermediate and longterm issues,” adds Dean Udpa. “Society has always benefited by taking the longterm view, and MSU is one of the few places where collaboration, diverse research activities and an embracing of this longterm view go hand in hand.”