The Combined MS-MBA Program: An Integrated Engineering and Business Approach to Product Development

The University of Tennessee (UT) at Knoxville initiated the innovative dual degree program in the fall of 2001. Its focus is to integrate the skills and knowledge of students studying both engineering and business, and to direct those skills to product development. It permits students, in 23 months, to obtain a Master of Business Administration (MBA) degree and a Master of Science (MS) degree in an engineering discipline. It is expected that, by the completion of the program, student teams will have developed a concept, a business plan, a marketing plan and a prototype for a marketable product. The vision of the MS- MBA dual degree is not merely to allow students to receive two graduate degrees in a compressed time frame, but to tightly integrate the two degrees, so that multidisciplinary student teams develop an industrial product from concept-to-market.