Development of a New Engineering Education in the Middle East

摘要

An emerging engineering education model in the Middle East has been created by Texas A&M University to be part of a unique universal education model developed by Qatar Foundation. Texas A&M University opened its third branch campus in 2003 to offer Bachelor of Science degrees in four engineering majors: chemical engineering, electrical engineering, mechanical engineering and petroleum engineering. The main objective of the Qatar campus is to support Qatar's National Vision 2030 by building high-quality engineering education model and to prepare highly skilled engineers and scientists to sustain Qatar's industry and economic growth. This paper highlights the success story of this new engineering education model. Furthermore, this paper highlights the differences of Texas A&M at Qatar model compared to similar regional engineering education systems in the Middle East and East Asia. The success of this model in creating unique research program and internship models for its undergraduate students has already been highlighted in our paper to the International Division of the American Society for Engineering Education last year (Parsaei & Elbashir, 2014).