A research initiative to close the gap between undergraduate and graduate school in engineering

Recent statistics indicate a declining population of undergraduate engineering students that continue toward advanced engineering degrees. This steady downturn in the number of graduate engineering students has fueled fears that the future of the nation´s manufacturing and high technology industry is damaged by a severe shortage of skilled engineers unless urgent steps are taken to halt and reverse the decline. In response, The College of Engineering (CoE) at the University of South Florida implemented an internal research experience for undergraduates (REU) initiative designed to provide the student with a valuable research encounter. What has resulted is an important retention in the number of engineering undergraduate students enrolling in our graduate program following their REU experience and a systematic approach to integrate a large number of undergraduate students into the research efforts of the college. In this paper we describe our experience and provide guidance for other interested institutions to implement this initiative. Our initial results show that 64% of our graduates continued toward graduate engineering degrees as a direct result of their research experience.