Distance education brings classroom to engineering students

Forget classrooms and chalkboards. For professional engineers who absolutely, positively can't leave home, Mississippi State is offering advanced degrees by videotape and interactive video.

A distance-learning program in the College of Engineering is enabling students to pursue master's and doctoral degrees in chemical, civil, electrical and computer, industrial, and mechanical engineering. The planned sequence of courses can lead to an advanced degree within three or four calendar years.

The program was organized to provide advanced engineering courses to persons in Mississippi, but students from more than a dozen other states have enrolled since 1986.

"A strong distance-learning program is particularly important to a rural state such as Mississippi," said Clayborne Taylor, associate dean of engineering for research and graduate studies. "Most practicing engineers in the state are likely to be working at locations more than a hundred miles from the nearest university campus with a graduate engineering program."

Interactive video classes are available at the Waterways Experiment Station in Vicksburg. A second interactive site is planned for the Stennis Space Center this fall.

For additional information on the off-campus graduate program, call 662-325-3825, or write College of Engineering, Box 9544, Mississippi State, MS 39762.