The automotive industry of the twenty-first century is poised to advance at a rapid pace with greater emphasis on lightweight structures, alternative energy sources, high efficiency powertrains, intelligent control systems, lower emissions, robust design and manufacturing as well as improved comfort and safety. To meet the challenges of the automotive industry, engineers will be required to improve their technical knowledge and skills in a variety of topics that are beyond the realm of traditional engineering curricula.

Automotive engineers will be expected to make connections among different areas of knowledge and integrate them in ways that benefit the automotive industry, society and the environment. Automotive engineers must be well grounded in their own areas of specialty; they must also have a good understanding of the related disciplines, be skilled in synthesis, analysis and design, work effectively in a team environment, and adopt a 'systems' approach.

In response to these needs, the College of Engineering and Computer Science has designed a 30-credit-hour interdisciplinary graduate degree program leading to a master's degree in Automotive Systems Engineering. Many courses in this program are specifically designed to address the new and emerging technology in the automotive industry. Students in this program will not only learn about advanced technologies, but also how to apply them in practice for creative design and problem solving.

The program provides:

• Depth in the area of automotive engineering
• Breadth across engineering disciplines of electrical, industrial, mechanical, manufacturing and materials engineering
• Industrially relevant engineering design or research experience through a capstone project or a master's thesis

All classes are held Monday-Thursday, 6-9 PM. Classes are available in Fall (Sept-Dec), Winter (Jan-Apr), Summer I (May-Jun) and Summer II (Jul-Aug) terms. The Fall and Winter courses are held once a week and the Summer I and Summer II courses are offered twice a week.

The Automotive Systems Engineering program is also offered in the distance-learning mode via the internet. The online courses utilize video streaming of the lectures given on campus. The online students have the opportunity to interact with the instructors and with fellow students (both on campus as well as online) through the Virtual Learning Tool (VLT) developed at the University of Michigan-Dearborn. The class lectures, notes and discussions are posted on VLT for online students' access. For more details of the online program, visit the web site: