Become an Industry Leader with a Masters of Global Engineering Leadership

School: The Ohio State University College of Engineering

Program: Master Global Engineering Leadership

Description: “The online Master of Global Engineering Leadership (MGEL) degree will prepare you to lead from any level in your organization. Through a curriculum that includes engineering, business and public policy, the MGEL degree is designed for practicing engineers who want to increase their technical expertise as well as their management acumen within a single degree.” – Bob Mick, director of the MGEL program.

Where it is: Columbus, Ohio

Format: Online

Degree you get: Master Global Engineering Leadership

Prerequisites: None

Size of the program: 18 students

Number of credit hours: Minimum of 31

Thesis: N/A

Capstone Project: Mandatory

How long it will take:  One to three years, depending on the pace the student selects.

When to apply: Rolling admission with no required application deadlines.

Tuition and Fees: $1,084 per credit hour

Minimum admission requirements: 

  • Transcripts: Yes, with Min. GPA 3.0
  • TOEFL: Yes, if not a domestic applicant. Min. scores of 550/213/79
  • Essay or Statement of Purpose: Yes
  • Resume: Yes. Min. 1 year work experience
  • Letters of Reference: Yes, 3 required
  • GRE: Yes, if undergraduate transcripts are less than 3.0 GPA

Who should take it?: 

  • Practicing engineers looking to improve their technical expertise and management skills.
  • Engineering professionals wishing to become leaders in their organization or industry.

Things to consider about the program:

  • Some courses may have exams requiring proctoring, which students will be responsible to arrange.
  • Students must choose their technical track immediately on acceptance into the program.

Claim to fame:

  • Program offers a unique combination of business and public policy education as well as technical education.
  • Technical track specializations allow students to pursue the path most well suited to their career.
  • Students can develop an individual, customized technical track with the approval of their faculty advisor.

To compete in increasingly globalized industries requires people with strong leadership skills. 

For engineers aiming for a future as a leader in their field, the online Master of Global Engineering Leadership degree from the Ohio State University (OSU) College of Engineering will prepare you to be a leader at any level of your organization.

Engineering leadership requires creativity, vision and a strong understanding of how to tackle and complete strategic initiatives in engineering business and industry. OSU’s MGEL degree teaches students through the combination of a program designed for practicing engineers, and a focus on increasing both technical expertise as well as management acumen.

OSU’s MGEL degree is unique in that it provides a grounding in business and public policy education alongside a technical education. OSU is able to offer this broad coverage due to partnerships between the College of Engineering, and OSU’s Fisher College of Business and John Glenn College of Public Affairs.

The core of the MGEL program is comprised of six core leadership courses designed specifically for engineers, which teach students real-world management and leadership skills, as well as how to apply these teachings to industry.

Leadership needs can vary widely across engineering disciplines and industries, however, so OSU offers a variety of technical track specializations for students to choose from in order to tailor their education to their career goals.

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Specialized Tracks for Your Career Aspirations

While the program doesn’t specifically include elective courses, students admitted to the program choose their desired technical track specialization according to their interests.

Currently, OSU offers five technical tracks in their MGEL degree program, which are built on the strengths of the OSU College of Engineering:

Automotive Systems prepares professionals with advanced skills in emerging automotive technologies, focusing on specialized areas of advanced propulsion, electrochemical energy systems, alternative fuels, powertrain systems and intelligent transportation.

Civil and Environmental is designed to provide technical education on topics including engineering and public policy, foundational concepts of human rights and environmental impact, the concepts and applications of structural reliability, and advanced topics on surveying and sensors for smart cities.

Enterprise Services and Architectures offers a computer science-focused specialization with a solid foundation in technology and decision making, ensuring students can operationally align enterprise systems and initiatives, analyze operational performance, design and manage processes, and govern projects and portfolios.

Radar Systems technical track prepares professionals in radar systems engineering to pursue innovative technical projects across industrial and government institutes, with courses covering wireless propagation, remote sensing, medical imaging and processing, electromagnetics and antennas.

Welding Engineering and Materials Joining trains students in areas of process technology, materials science, design, inspection and quality control, plastics and polymeric composites and non-destructive evaluation.

OSU is also in the development phase of a technical track in Materials Science, with future options planned for Manufacturing, Power and Energy.

If none of these specializations are quite what you’re looking for, students also have the option to work with their faculty advisor to design a customized individual specialization track in order for students to get the education most essential to their career.


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Each technical track option requires a capstone Integrative Project as part of the MGEL program. These projects provide students with an opportunity to combine the professional and technical skills they learned throughout their degree, such as reflection and critical thinking, as well as professional communication and mastery of the knowledge gained from the core and technical track courses.

This integrative project can be an investigation, an analysis or design-based. Students make their selection of form and topic along program guidelines and with the approval of their engineering faculty advisor.

Students are encouraged to design their project around a real-world engineering issue that the student has identified at their place of employment.  The project is then proposed to and developed in cooperation with the student’s employer. However, if it is not possible for a student to include their employer’s participation, an independent topic can be developed by the student and their advisor.



Online Learning On Your Schedule

The Master of Global Engineering Leadership degree program is offered 100 percent online and specifically designed for practicing engineers.  With the combined focus on business practices and public policy, this program is especially suited to engineers working in government, industry, and similar fields.

The online format is ideal for these working professionals, and students can enroll as either part-time or full-time, to complete the program in 12 months to three years, depending on the student’s schedule.

Bob Mick, director of the Masters of Global Engineering Leadership program.

“Our degree allows students to select their own pace and they can change it at any time,” said Bob Mick, director of the MGEL program. “I recommend that students take no more than two courses to start and even one is best if they’ve been out of college for a long time. They can begin by taking one class their first semester and then increase to two courses their second semester if they believe they can handle the load.”

Both the online and on-campus iterations of the degree program’s courses are the same, and are equally rigorous. “The syllabus, assignments, grading strategies, student and faculty expectations, course materials, course goals and learning outcomes are all the same,” said Bob Mick, director of the MGEL program.

However, students should be aware that some courses in the program may have exams requiring proctoring, in which case the student will be responsible for arranging the services of a testing center or online proctoring service.

Course content is delivered asynchronously, with no specific times for class attendance, meaning students can study and view lecture content at the times convenient to them. However, the courses are offered in sync with their on-campus counterparts, so the overall program and coursework schedule follows that of the university academic calendar and semester schedule for start and end dates.

Student and faculty interaction is encouraged through discussion boards and email. Online students are able to interact with people from different backgrounds and situations, affording many opportunities to experience new perspectives and concepts throughout their studies, and building personal networks among the program.

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OSU also works hard to ensure that their online student community feels connected to the greater OSU and College of Engineering communities, by keeping them informed of events, important dates and other activities involving the university. Even though MGEL students may not physically be present on campus, the school strives to make sure they feel just as much a part of OSU as the students who attend in person.

All graduates of the program will also be part of the OSU and College of Engineering alumni associations, with the opportunities to network and take advantage of these lifelong connections.

Overview of MGEL Degree Courses

Core Leadership Courses

  • Leadership and Team Effectiveness
  • Financial and Managerial Accounting for Engineers
  • Technology Strategy and Innovation Management
  • Project Management for Engineers
  • Engineering Ethics and Professionalism
  • The Business-Government Relationship
  • Management in Public Agencies

Technical Track Specializations

Civil and Environmental Engineering

  • Science, Engineering, and Public Policy
  • Assessment for Human Rights and Sustainability
  • Structural Reliability  
  • Advanced Topics in Surveying for Smart Cities 
  • Individual Studies - Integrative Capstone Project



Welding and Materials Joining

  • Physical Principles in Welding Processes 
  • Welding Metallurgy 
  • Engineering Analysis for Design and Simulation
  • Welding of Plastics and Composites
  • Individual Studies - Integrative Capstone Project



Enterprise Services and Architecture

  • Software Engineering Techniques
  • Distributed Enterprise Computing  
  • Applied Enterprise Architectures & Services
  • Introduction to Database Systems
  • Individual Studies - Integrative Capstone Project



Radar Systems Engineering

  • Wireless Propagation and Remote Sensing
  • Antennas
  • An Introduction to Radar Systems 
  • Medical Imaging and Processing  
  • Individual Studies - Integrative Capstone Project



Automotive Systems Engineering
Students select two focus areas for a total of four courses.

  • Focus Area 1: Advanced Propulsion Systems (APS)

Electrochemical Energy Conversion and Storage Systems for Automotive Applications

Energy Modeling, Simulation, Optimization and Control of Advanced Vehicles

  • Focus Area 2: Powertrain Modeling and Control (PMC)

Powertrain Dynamics 

Powertrain Control Systems 

  • Focus Area 3: Noise, Vibration and Harshness (NVH)

Automotive NVH I 
Automotive NVH II

  • Individual Studies - Integrative Capstone Project



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The Ohio State University has sponsored this post. They have no editorial input to this post - all opinions are mine. –Meghan Brown