Detailed structure of the program
The UMANE project focuses on an undergraduate degree program: two European and one US Universities are directly involved in awarding the dual degree (as project participants), while a further US University, for example Rutgers University, is involved in the project to improve the quality of teaching (by increasing the number of available courses in Industrial Engineering and Management). Hence, we expect that students from all the participating institutions will be enrolled into the double degree program.
With this purpose in mind, and due to the differences between the degree structures in Italy and in the US, an appropriate program has been designed for students who will take part in UMANE dual degree project. The scheme of the transatlantic joint degree program is proposed in Fig.1.
Figure 1: detailed plan of the TD program.
As figure 2 shows, in Italy the regular undergraduate degree program is 3 years, covers 180 ECTS; this does not match the corresponding undergraduate degrees (BS) in the US and in Spain, which consist of four years, for approx 240 ECTS (although the computation of credits is different for the US universities). Therefore, for achieving the dual degree, the Parma students will be asked to follow an ad-hoc-4-year tailor-made program. In this program, EU students will attend the first 2 years at their home University. During their third year students from Extremadura will spend one semester at the University of Parma through the LLP-Erasmus Programme, while US students in transatlantic mobility will attend the same EU institution. The following semester will see Parma and US students move to the University of Extremadura (ES), where the Spanish Erasmus students formerly in Parma will get back. At the end of the 3rd year, the EU students will have to attend the fourth year at the US Universities. Courses to be attended by EU students during the fourth year will be specifically defined in the study plan. This mobility structure has basically one relevant advantage: the third and the fourth years are spent together by ALL the students involved in the UMANE dual degree. In this way, UMANE offers a concrete opportunity to develop an international classroom moving across Europe and to the US. Not only an opportunity to develop strong and important personal relationships, but also a concrete possibility to follow the scientific growth of the dual degree students and to monitor their performances at one time.
