Your journey begins at orientation, where you'll meet a diverse cohort of engineers, designers, business strategists, and more who will become your teammates and friends. In two days, you'll learn the inner workings of CMU and explore core tenets of the program as you think, engage, and collaborate.
First-semester coursework immerses you in hands-on, project-based learning. You'll experience how the different disciplines combine their thinking and skill sets on multidisciplinary teams. Starting from how real people live and work, you'll identify problems worth solving and shape products and services that meet customer needs and deliver real value. Advisor-approved electives let you branch out and expand your skill set. Friday Seminars broaden your perspective through conversations with industry, academic, and alumni speakers.
In the spring, expect to be challenged in the Integrated Product Development capstone, where your team is paired with an industry sponsor to take on a real, unresolved problem. From the first meeting onward, you'll balance team dynamics, faculty guidance, intensive feedback, and sponsor requirements and communications as you apply what you have learned in the program. This is where innovation meets reality. The best teams chart a path through the ambiguity at the beginning, move from problem and opportunity to product concept and solution, and finish by presenting and defending their work to the sponsor.
If you are one of the students who continues with a third semester, you'll take additional electives and join the Mindset Intensive, an advanced seminar where you choose a specialized track: Experience-Driven Innovation, Systems Thinking, or Technology-Driven Innovation. Within your track, you'll explore complex challenges through applied research and creative problem-solving, going deeper in the area that fits your ambitions.
Throughout the journey, you'll build relationships with classmates, faculty, and industry partners who share your ambition, and those relationships continue far beyond graduation.
MIIPS Program Frequently Asked Questions