Providing M.E. Students Opportunities to Enroll in Law School Courses

One of the strengths of the mechanical engineering curriculum is its broad applicability to a variety of professions. Thus, a student majoring in mechanical engineering may end up going to medical school, or earn an MBA. Another such alternative path which is gaining more traction is attending law school or directly applying for a job as a patent examiner where a JD is not required. We strive to provide our students with information to make better career decisions while still working on their undergraduate degrees. We have thus collaborated with our university’s law school to allow roughly five engineering juniors each year to enroll in one of their courses taken by second and third year law school students. To date, students have taken a course entitled ‘Introduction to Intellectual Property.’ This year, a second course is being added: ‘Environmental Law.’ There are several challenges to overcome to provide this opportunity. For example, our law school is on a semester system while our engineering program is on the quarter system. Until a couple years ago, the two programs maintained different spring breaks. Even tuition and registration becomes problematic due to being in different schools/colleges and one being an undergraduate program and the other a graduate program. However, the benefits to the students have been shown to clearly outweigh the costs. Here we will detail the mechanisms used to successfully implement this program and provide direct feedback from the students who have participated to date. In short, the students unanimously agreed that the program was extremely worthwhile and over 25% of those participating are now considering a career combining engineering and law.