Engineering and Intensive English Internship Program (INTO by CANIETI)

Objective

To increase the number of Mexican students in graduate programs in the US in CANIETI’s core areas and in related areas where these can be applied. a) Improve students’ English proficiency to increase their testing abilities for passing the admission required standardized tests (TOEFL and GRE) b) Introduce to research, by placing them with a faculty member of the College of Engineering or Agriculture and Life Sciences, to provide a full immersion to TAMU’s grad school environment.

Aligned to Proyecta 100,000 of FOBESII, and to the national public policies in IT, CANIETI presented The Engineering & Intensive English Program; proposal to boost the mobility of engineering students and professionals related to electronics, telecommunications, and information technologies to carry out their graduate studies abroad on disruptive technologies areas with mayor growth and economic potential.

The objective is to increase the number of Mexican professionals prepared to develop research and innovation thus encouraging student mobilization for graduate programs in universities in the United States within related areas on innovative technologies of the electronics, communications, and information technologies sectors such as: Internet of Things, Mobile Internet, Big Data/Analytics, Automation of Knowledge Work, Cloud Computing, Advanced Robotics, Autonomous Vehicles, 3D Printing, among others. These efforts will allow to count with specialized human resources to drive the tecnological and economic development of the country.

In 2014, 50 students were sent for 12 weeks to Texas A&M University to work on real-time research projects in the university´s  laboratories, as well as to improve their English language abilities through intensive courses that also would helped them to be better prepared for the TOELF and GRE exams; these exams are essencial and mandatory for their admission to graduate school. As in 2015, 35 more students were granted scholarships to attend the Program following the same guidelines except that this last group had the opportunity to participate in a Poster Competition along with undergraduate students of the university, in which they exponed their research performed throughout the summer.
In 2016, 46 students from Yucatan, Hidalgo and Guadalajara participated in the INTO by CANIETI program in the College of Engineering and Agriculture and Life Sciences College, representing a total investment of $437,000 USD from the Mexican government and its industry partners. It is expected to extend the program to the College of Geosciences in 2017.

The return on investment for CANIETI and its partners and for the College of Engineering has been very positive. From the 131 students participating in the 2014, 2015 and 2016 CANIETI programs, 37 students were accepted into a Master or PhD program outside Mexico. From those students, 24 were fully accepted at Texas A&M for their Masters of PhDs programs. Moreover, all of them were fully funded by CONACYT, and are being currently hosted by 10 faculty on 7 different Departments in the College of Engineering. This represents a 48% increase in the number of Mexican students in the graduate programs at Texas A&M and an investment of over $1,200,000 in tuition and fees only. Without mentioning the economic benefits for the City of College Station and the City of Bryan.

The investment of CONACYT on the support of the CANIETI students pursuing a graduate degree at TAMU represents now the largest CONACYT expenditure in TAMU (more than 2 million USD).