Certificate and Minor
Certificate in Engineering and Community Engagement
Undergraduate students from all disciplines can earn the certificate in engineering and community engagement by completing all HESE courses. Students need a total of 12.5 credits for the certificate: all HESE courses + one elective from an extensive list of acceptable courses. Elective courses can touch on community engagement or U.S. and international cultures. These courses may be scheduled to satisfy general education requirements (GS/GH/US/IL) depending on the courses selected.
This certificate is intended to acknowledge students who have gained proficiency in the design, research, and application of appropriate technologies in serving communities while stressing awareness of the cultural context of such engineering activities. Students need not be engineers to earn this certificate.
Entrepreneurship and Innovation (ENTI) Minor
HESE courses make up the social entrepreneurship cluster of the entrepreneurship and innovation (ENTI) minor that operates across campus. The minor prepares students with the broader skills to be entrepreneurship and innovation leaders, whether they pursue a startup now or in the future. The social entrepreneurship cluster prepares students to affect sustainable and scalable social impact within marginalized communities while working in real-time to develop and deliver solutions that are technologically appropriate, environmentally benign, socially acceptable, and economically sustainable.
Students interested in this minor will need to take nine more prescribed credits in engineering and management at any time before graduation in addition to the core 9.5 credits of the HESE program. Often these extra three courses can count towards a student’s degree, thus allowing a minor with few if any extra credits. It is suggested that the non-HESE classes be taken after students have begun the HESE classes. Participation in the minor will also help a student to better understand how their HESE skills apply to more typical entrepreneurship and intrapreneurship activities. This minor, and the social entrepreneurship cluster, is open to students from any major.
