Undergraduate Enterprise Experience as Indicator of Success

Document Type

Conference Proceeding

Publication Date

2-7-2026

Abstract

The Enterprise Program has been a staple of the College of Engineering at Michigan Technological University (Michigan Tech) since the early 2000's where 25+ Enterprise teams work to invent products, provide services, and pioneer solutions. Enterprise teams are sponsored by national corporations, local businesses and on-campus entities. The teams are formed of students from all degree programs on campus who are involved in developing and implementing real solutions to meet their sponsors' needs. This experience can be like a one-semester undergraduate research project or used to satisfy the requirements of a two-semester senior capstone design. To become involved in the Enterprise Program students contact the Enterprise Team faculty advisor and some teams have an interview and application process. Then, students get started by registering for ENT credit starting as soon as the second semester of their first year which can be substituted as technical elective credit for most degrees. Like traditional undergraduate research, students are working with faculty to make a scholarly contribution to knowledge within their field. Enterprise Team students are required to author technical reports, and most deliver regular oral progress report presentations to their sponsors. Project reports can be published as scholarly conference proceedings or journal articles as students continue to progress in their research of topics with their faculty advisors. This research project is to answer the question of how involvement in the undergraduate experience in Enterprise relates to student success in Mechanical Engineering Technology (MET) degree program and for students to successfully find employment after graduation in a related field. Anecdotally, company recruiters as well as career services staff will encourage students to join an Enterprise Program because it will improve their chances of landing a job after graduation. For instance, Enterprise is touted to “build the real-world skills that top employers seek”. Two methods were used to measure success in the MET program, which are program GPA and class standing. To measure student employment in a related field, all graduates are asked to complete a survey at the completion of their degree in the last week prior to graduating. In the survey students are asked to supply the job title, company, and salary of the job they have accepted. Analysis of 151 survey responses from 2019 to 2024 sent to 206 MET graduates, (73% response rate) is that there is a positive relationship between participation in Enterprise and MET success as well as career placement. It is unknown if Enterprise was the only contributing factor. There are other activities such as participating in co-op and internship experiences that are also reported on the exit survey having similar results. Unknown factors such as the types of degree minors or additional technical electives may also contribute to students' success and employment.

Publication Title

Proceedings of the 2026 Conference for Industry and Education Collaboration Ciec 2026

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