Duke’s Master of Engineering Management

May 6, 2025 by Linda Abraham

What you Need to Know about Duke’s Master of Engineering Management [Episode 604]

Show Summary

In this episode of Admissions Straight Talk, Dr. Christy Bozic, the Executive Director of Duke University’s Masters of Engineering Management (MEM) program, discusses the unique aspects of the program, including the differences between online and in-person formats, and the importance of integrating technical and business skills. She also delves into the admissions process, emphasizing the significance of professionalism and the future role of GRE scores. Dr. Bozic highlights the new co-op program and shares her vision for the future of the MEM program, focusing on industry partnerships and curriculum development.

Show Notes

Admissions Straight Talk is ranked 10th in FeedSpot’s ranking of the top 80 higher ed podcasts. It is also the only admissions podcast in that top 10. Thank you to FeedSpot for the honor, and thank you to listeners and guests for your participation and listenership. Without both, we wouldn’t be in the ranking.

Speaking of guests, our guest today is Dr. Christy Bozic, Executive Director of the Masters of Engineering Management Program at Duke University’s Pratt School of Engineering. Dr. Bozic earned her bachelor’s in industrial technology at Purdue University, her MBA at Butler University, and her PhD in education back at Purdue.

She worked in corporate America for several years before joining first Purdue University and then the University of Colorado at Boulder, where she taught engineering management and directed its engineering management program. In August, 2024, just recently, Dr. Bozic joined Duke University’s Pratt School of Engineering as the executive director of the MEM program, which is the master’s in engineering management program.

And I think that’s recent enough that I can still congratulate you on your new position.

Yeah, still within one year. So I’m still claiming to be a newbie there.

Congratulations and welcome to Admissions Street Talk. Can you start by giving an overview of the Masters of Engineering Management program at Duke?

Thanks for having me. So Duke has one of, I’d say one of the largest masters of engineering management programs. One of the founding members of the MAMPC, which is a collaboration or consortium of higher ed masters in engineering management programs. We have both on campus and online programs for full-time students as well as working professionals. And it’s one of the oldest engineering management programs as well. So I think we’re almost 27 years old in terms of a discipline that’s pretty new, it’s an older program in that discipline.

It’s an older program and a fairly new discipline. What need is this discipline and program intended to fill?

Sure, well, I think any engineers who are out there listening and probably quite a few, which is why they’ve clicked on this podcast perhaps, understand the need for not only the technical skills in their day-to-day jobs, but then also to be able to put that within the context of working for a company or commercializing those skills, right? So that’s where engineering management comes in.

It gives engineers the language of business. We teach them everything from marketing, finance, IP, law, communications, just how to lead in high-tech companies. So really it’s a discipline that allows engineers to take their really specific technical talents and apply that in the business world.

I interviewed the previous director of the Duke MEM, Louis Morales, a little over a year ago, and we focused more in that interview on the in-person program, and I’m also going to link to that interview from the show notes, but I’d like to focus a little more this time on the online program. How does it differ from the in-person version?

Sure, well, a little bit about the online program is, first of all, it doesn’t really differ that much except in terms of delivery. We still have the same core courses in the online as in the on-campus program.

Really the main difference is that we’re catering to working professionals in the online program, whereas our in-person program is mostly full-time graduate students on campus. So that online program is currently ranked fifth in the U.S. News and World Reports ranking. We just this year started our 17th cohort. It’s been around a long time as well. Each cohort has about 30 to 45 students. It takes about a couple of years, usually part-time. And again, it is catered to that working professional. So most of our students are working, looking to be able to apply their STEM degrees for either job advancement, to take on leadership roles or maybe even to pivot completely into a different industry or advancing in some way that aligns with their interests. So one of the things I like that differentiates the online program from other online programs is that Duke has a residency requirement for our online students, which may sound a little daunting, but whenever we talk to the online students after they’ve graduated, always, it’s a differentiator. It’s one of the things they remember most. So our students, online students, will come to Durham three different times as part of the online program, to network, to do group projects, and then again for graduation. So we kick off with an in-person residency and then right in the middle, like after year one, they’ll do a one-week residency and then they’ll come for graduation for that third residency as well. So it really is an opportunity for those, that cohort to sort of build community. It’s, you know, a lot of online programs, you’re just talking to a screen or looking at a screen, and and it really does allow the students to sort of build that network and, and camaraderie and build those relationships.

You can create relationships strictly online, but if you can add that in-person component to it, it brings it to a whole new level.

Yeah, I mean, and actually it just kind of reflects what’s happening in the workplace today as well. Not only do so many people work remotely with some version of coming together maybe a few times a year at corporate events or whatever. So, you know, it’s really that sort of new normal too.

A couple of questions occurred to me, which may actually relate more to your answer to the first question. And now you mentioned that these engineers are learning all the business context.

Are they also advancing at all in terms of their technical engineering skills, or is it mostly business applied to engineering?

Yes and yes. So the core courses, the main courses that are required along with their electives. So students can take, the online or the on-campus students, have the ability to take electives into a deep dive in technical or more business oriented and focused. But the difference between sort of the way we do it versus the way, let’s say an MBA program might do it as well in terms of those business classes is when I talk about engineering management as a differentiator between an MBA, I always keep coming back to that by, for, and with engineers, right? So by engineers, our faculty are either all engineers, worked in high tech companies, have been there and done that and have come back into the classroom to bring that experience into their education for engineers. Really the curriculum that we’re developing, if it’s technical, obviously it’s got that engineering spin, but about marketing or IP or finance, right? That’s not always sort of like engineering or technical, but the way that it’s presented, it’s within the cases or context of high tech companies or high tech corporations and with engineers. By, for, and with engineers, it’s other STEM professionals in the program with you, problem solving in the way that engineers do. And that’s not to say that MBA programs aren’t full of engineers because most certainly they are, but we are purposefully developing programs, curriculum, content that serves the needs of the STEM professional.

That even addresses a question I haven’t even yet asked. Let’s turn back to the online focus for this interview.

Is it harder or easier to get into the online program than the in-person program? And are you planning to grow the online program, both because online in general seems to be growing and because it’s a smaller cohort?

So in terms of whether or not it’s more difficult or not, it is not. It is definitely a different type of student seeking a different type of experience. The face-to-face program or the on-campus program really does meet in person full-time. When we look at our online program, it is catered to that working professional.

They still have the same minimum requirements that are required by Pratt, by Duke. So the same application, the same sort of process for everyone to go through depending on that, and then the same sort of technical background or requirements are needed as well. So it’s not any easier or harder to get into the program. It just attracts a different type of student, usually the working professional who is still working full time and going to school part time through this async online program.

What is the typical amount of work experience that an entering student has?

So the typical work experience for the online student is about three to six years of work experience. And usually they’re looking to get that third level promotion more into management or again, like I said, to pivot into something different. I’d say the average age of our online student is around 28 years old plus or minus, right? So I’d say that’s sort of typical of most online programs.

And is that a little older than your in-person program?

It is a little bit older than our in-person program. Our in-person program, many of the students have the option to come straight from their undergrad to the in-person program, but I’d say the majority in our in-person program have a couple years experience as well.

Now I think the benefits of the online program are pretty obvious, convenience, no lost income, because you continue working, no moving, either expenses or inconvenience or anything like that. And they probably top the list.

What are some of the challenges of students studying in the online program?

You know, I would say that our online program wouldn’t really be any different than any other online program in terms of the working professional, right? First and foremost, it’s life, it’s time, it’s work requirements and balancing that load between this deadline and, you know, soccer practice at home or, you know, whatever it may be between work and family. And it really does come down to making that time.

So I’d say time management and the balance between your rigors of schoolwork as well as the necessity of work and family time as well. But our courses are asynchronous so that once you’ve got your work done, you’ve finished dinner, put your kids to bed, so you may be logging on at 11 p.m. on a Thursday and learning something that you can put into practice Monday morning and see the benefits of it and try it out. So again, it’s just the balancing. And another thing about the online program is for some reason, if a student has to step away or take a break that we’ve got the ability for them to press pause. It’s not recommended, of course, but that program allows a little bit of that if necessary too.

Now you touched on the three one-week residencies. What do they do during the week? What’s it like?

So it is a mix, it’s all day during the day. They’re either working on, the days are academic, right? So they’re working on cases, they’re doing workshops, team exercises, et cetera. And then the evenings, there is usually something planned either around Durham or a dinner or guest speakers. So it’s really packed full of purposeful academic as well as curated activities that really meet the needs of team building and networking too.

I noticed when I was preparing for the call, and I remember from last year also, that professionalism is very important and you have the five principles. Can you go over what they are and their importance to the program?

Right. So everything that we do in terms of curriculum, in terms of engaging industry, in terms of student experiences are built around those five principles of professionalism. And I’ll sort of have to quiz me and make sure I get these right here. So we’ve got communications, of course, communications. And these five principles really did come as a result of working with our industry board and our industry partner saying of course it’s important for our engineering managers and engineers to have these very technical abilities. That’s sort of given, given that we’re hiring engineers, but really kind of what we need from our engineers are these principles, right? Sort of these core principles around communication, teamwork, critical thinking, ethics and humanism and they’re all pretty self-explanatory, but when combined together, we sort of use that as the lens through which we develop our new programs, our partnerships, and experiences for students, sort of meeting all of those or some of those high-level professionalism. Again, the industry is demanding it. Industry wants that in addition to the technical skills.

Engineers are known for technical skills. They’re not necessarily known for communications. They are known for critical thinking to be sure. You know, ethics and teamwork. I’m, I don’t know if they’re known or not known for that humanness, maybe not so much. So that’s, those are things that it makes sense that that you, you know, you want to develop them.

And that humanness really is something, so in our application process we ask students to, on their essays, talk about one of those concepts of professionalism, and humanness seems to be the one that they always gravitate to. Which is a lot of fun for me to read ethics and humanists really because we’re known for product management, entrepreneurship, et cetera. And really when looking at product design, looking at it through the lens of your consumer, how it’s going to help, like, I think today students are really sort of driven to using their gifts for good, right? So bringing that humanness and letting them sort of explore that has been a lot of fun for at least for me to read in these essays for the application.

You are an engineer, so you have a lot of technical skills. I am not an engineer. Never got close to being an engineer. And I can tell you that every so often I’ll go to a website or I’ll be using some device and I’m thinking like, what were they thinking? It’s just frustrating. I mean, it’s happening less and less as the web evolves, but it was like, huh?

You expect a robot to use this? I mean, what’s going on? So I think the principles make a lot of sense, actually. You don’t have to teach people what’s innate or what comes easily. You have to teach them what’s not so innate. That makes a lot of sense.

You know, math and science comes easy to, well, mostly. I mean, that’s a math generalization or what.

Of course, of course, we’re both generalizing.

You know, we, when we make them practice a different side of their brain around the ethics and humanness of, and professionalism, it’s, it’s a lot of fun to, to explore that.

I can imagine it is. All right, let’s turn to the admissions part. Will the GRE be optional for 2026 applicants? And if so, who should take the GRE?

That’s a great question. Anyone who wants to.

I don’t think anybody wants to.

No, you’re not raising your hand for standardized tests, right? So I haven’t received the official word from Duke, but I believe that it will still be optional and not required as it was this year. And again, it’s another data point to include in your application if you so desire, right?

So I don’t believe it will be necessary. And I wouldn’t say that it’s a pro or con either way.

It depends on the score.

If you’ve got a great score, of course, include it.

What else are you looking for in the admissions process? Obviously good academics in technical fields, extracurriculars, leadership.

Yes, all of the above. Actually, I kind of look for the same thing in both the online and the in-person programs, right? So of course, the appropriate background, that you’re math ready. I read every word of every essay and listen to every video submission as well. I want to see something that says why you are drawn to getting your degree in engineering management. Why engineering management? Why Duke? Why is it important to you and to your career within those essays? Of course, we’re looking at the standard metrics as well as everyone else, GPA, years of work experience, leadership, what you’ve done in your undergrad, what you do in your community, really something that sort of stands out. And then we have this part on our application where it’s like, what are the 10 things you’d like us to know about you? Any 10 things. And that’s really a lot of fun too, because that allows sort of that humanness to come in the essay or into the application process as well.

I didn’t realize that was part of your application. I knew it was part of the MBA application for a long time. So let’s turn to the short essays. First question. What is short?

What is short? What is about a paragraph about 1500 characters? It’s pretty short per essay question. And there are three essay questions around again, why Duke and why engineering management. We talk, we ask about professionalism and what the five principles would mean to them. Again, where we talk about really just picking one and diving into why it’s important to them.

And then we also ask about what elective track they would be interested in. And we do have well-defined elective tracks within our program or a choose your own experience where a student can sort of curate their own track. So again, those essays,1,500 characters each. I just want to learn a little bit more about the motivation for getting the degree, a little bit about their experience, if there’s something that would help them stand out. I’d love to hear about that. So I really look for those interesting stories that helped, I guess, to personalize those words on the screen, on the humanness on the screen.

Right now the question that kind of stood out in my mind was the second one. Professionalism and the five principles of the pillars of the Duke MEM program.

Choose one principle and explain how you plan to contribute in that way at Duke MEM and beyond.

I found it very interesting that you asked them to explain how they intend to contribute as opposed to maybe how they intend to grow or gain in that respect. Could you touch on that a little bit?

Sure. So particularly with the on-campus program, there are lots of opportunities for students to engage and sort of lead while they’re here and build sort of those leadership skills, whether it is participating in a club, in our executive challenge pitch competitions, there’s just a ton of opportunities for students to engage, to work. So, you know, this is an opportunity, let’s say they chose teamwork and they’ve done something very interesting in their undergraduate degree where they’ve led a team or at work where they’ve, you know, founded something and led and talked about the importance of teamwork and how they can use those lessons from that experience moving forward either toward their studies or toward some extracurricular or something even focused on their career, right? So representing Duke by doing really well in your career later on. So it’s so broad. Students can interpret it and apply it in a lot of different ways.

And of course the team that example that they could be giving could be a sports team. Could be playing in a band. It could be all kinds of different teams, groups, committees.

Do you plan to change the questions for the upcoming application cycle? It seems like you’re pretty happy with them.

So I, well, I’m new here. I’ve had a lot of fun reading the answers to those questions. Maybe somebody who’s done it for like three or five years and you’re like, okay, these questions may need refreshed or I’m, I like the questions. We are getting ready to go into planning for next admissions. So we’re going to take a look at those questions and see if we want to keep them or not. So I don’t know if they’ll change.

I can’t imagine all three changing, but maybe one, maybe one or two.

What purpose does the video introduction serve in the evaluation process? Because you have a video introduction and you have a video interview, but the video interview is just like you and I are talking on Zoom, right? So let’s go back to the video introduction.

The introduction is an opportunity for the student to shine versus what is just on the page. So, I don’t have to tell you a lot of times when I’m reading these essays, I can clearly tell that these essays were maybe not written by the human, by a human, maybe they were written by AI, right? Right. And sort of modified and that’s fine. And I get that, but that video, you know, a couple minutes where you’re able to tell your story and talk about it is where I can tell the difference between if you are telling the same story as in your essay, if you’ve lived that essay story or if it was AI written. So it really does give the applicant an opportunity to let their personality shine through to really talk about their motivation in wanting to come to Duke and study MEM and really again coming back to those principles to humanize and to be able to tell the stories. So it’s a good opportunity to add something that is not in the essay part for sure that isn’t coming through on your resume and sort of three minutes to sort of let that come through about why you should be here at Duke.

They are responding to a specific prompt and there are a few different prompts and there are three opportunities. So you’ll get a prompt and you’ll get like maybe 60 seconds or something to prepare. But the prompts are general enough so that you can add to, like if there’s a story, you can find a way to integrate that into the prompts that they’re general enough for that. And then let’s say you mess up and you need to rerecord, you’ll get a different question.

It really is an opportunity to see, I’ve got a minute to plan, let’s think on my feet. What do I want to say or contribute? it’s not something that you can let AI do and read in that quick of a response. So I’m getting what I feel like is a real genuine response.

When I saw it, I was wondering if it was a response to AI, but getting to AI, how was AI incorporated into the curriculum? I guess we’re moving back away, a little bit away from admissions for a second.

This is a good question, and one that if you ask one faculty member, you’ll get one answer and you ask another, you’ll get another. And if you ask a Dean, maybe you’ll get a third, right? So our approach to AI, let’s talk about it from a course perspective first, right? So, you know, we’re engineering management. We understand technology, data is important.

The importance of ML and AI moving forward is obvious, so I think that what we’re doing is that we found a way to incorporate AI and machine learning within the curriculum around specific courses in AI. We have a full degree in a master’s degree in AI, so we’ve partnered with that program to to say okay, in terms of engineering management, how can we use ML and AI to make better decisions for product process and people management, right, around engineering management? Using AI to really get through large data sets so that we can make good business decisions based on lots of data or technology. So we have courses that integrate engineering management and data and AI.

Now, if we’re talking course specific and like, can a student use AI in a course for writing or whatever, that is completely up to the professor of that course. And it’s up to them to say what their rules are so that students are crystal clear about that on day one of that course. So we have different levels. Some professors say no AI at all. Some professors really develop courses, develop assessments, tests, papers, assignments that integrate AI and teach you how to use it responsibly, right? So it’s a varied mix.

I would assume that if you’re preparing your students for the future, the present and the future for that matter, there has to be something about how to use AI. I mean, otherwise, it’s not, you know, you’re not doing what you need to do. It’s evolving, too. So whatever you say today in a year could change dramatically.

Let’s go back to the application process. What can applicants who are invited to interview expect during their interview?

That’s a good question. There is no one thing to expect. Usually when we have an interview, the readers will take this first pass. I’ve got a variety of things they’re looking for. Then it comes to me for that second look. I look at every application, watch every video.

And then I’ll make notes about some of the things like if I’m in the resume and there’s something very specific around a leadership opportunity or a job or something that came through on your letters of recommendation, I will make notes to say, you know, let’s ask the applicant about this and that. So a lot of it is very specific to what’s in your application.

And then we also have a variety of general questions as well. Again, why engineering management, why Duke, a lot of situational questions around career outcomes, et cetera. So there isn’t really one specific thing to expect other than expect the interviewer to want to get to know your motivation around the purpose of coming to Duke and learning about engineering management and what you’d like to do with that degree.

So the applicant should be prepared to answer questions about maybe pivot points in their resume or their life.

Absolutely. Right. If there’s a gap in their resume, if they typically have some work experience, of course, we’ll probably ask about the gap. If there’s some really cool opportunity or some really cool leadership experience they had as or currently, we’ll ask about that. It really is very specific. If it’s something you wrote in their essay that that sparked interest in someone who will be doing it. And the interviewers have a lot of sort of agency in terms of what they would like to ask as well, just based on the package as a whole. So, you know, if there’s something in the transcript where, let’s say, first semester of their undergrad was rough, and that happens, right? It happens. And then there’s this progression. We’ll ask you about that. And that’s a really great opportunity to talk about resilience and growth and learning and what you’ve taken away from that. Those interviews are really a good opportunity to sort of give your full story.

And one thing I meant to ask you and forgot earlier when we were discussing the program was about the co-op program.

So this is brand new. This is brand new to Duke. When I say brand new, it started in fall of ‘24. So what we were finding is that our students in between year one going into, after semester two coming back for that last semester, usually our on-campus students will finish either in three or four semesters. They have an internship experience in the summer and there’s a lot of times where they’re really doing an excellent job. Their employers, perhaps the project wasn’t complete and they would like to extend their internship for the fall semester because of visa restrictions, they’re not able to do that. They’re not enrolled as full time. They’ve got CPT issues, whatever it may be. We just didn’t have a way for, those residency requirements and that to extend.

It really came from that opportunity of students wanting to complete or extend their internships. Now what we’re finding is students are interested in coming to Duke because of the opportunity to co-op. So knowing that they can, you know, study for their first full academic year and then take a six, like a six month co-op to apply for it and then come back for that last semester or even do two co-ops, giving them the flexibility to sort of earn as they’re learning or to even leave their full-time job, come for an academic year, come back to their full-time job for a bit and then finish up, is a reduction in opportunity cost, if you will, as well. So having that formalized co-op program now is really a differentiator for our program. And we are now working

It originally came where, okay, students who have the opportunity, like it’s here for you. Now what we’re doing is saying, okay, companies, we’ve got this and we’ve got these students. How do we make better connections between the students we have and have you ever considered starting a co-op program in your company? So what we’re trying to do is now not only make sure students understand it, but make sure employers know that we have it so that they get the good student.

Now this program, I assume is mostly for the in-person students, correct?

It is mostly for the in-person students. We haven’t had any online students ask for it, but I don’t see why it wouldn’t be appropriate for an online student. Again, the online students are mostly working professionals.

I realize that you’ve been in this position for less than a year, but what direction would you like to take the program and the admissions process? Any changes you’d like to see?

So I’m gonna talk about the program specifically first because Duke’s admissions process is pretty standardized by the university. So I’m following sort of what the Duke and Pratt specific standards are. But in terms of the program, one of the directions I’d like to take it, and we did talk about this a little bit, is really around deepening and expanding our corporate partnerships. Really working with industry, either on internships and co-ops, projects for coursework, opportunities for industry to come into our classroom or our students to go out there. Really just really a lot more applied industry-based projects and experiences.

And then again, looking at the curriculum and again, partnering with industry to say, is this the right curriculum? Is it what you’re needing? What does the engineering manager of, you know, 2030, 2035 look like? Let’s say 2030, you know, things do change quickly. Are we serving that need and if not, what needs to change? So really taking that inventory, doing a gap analysis and making sure that we’re still meeting the needs of students and industry.

What question would you have liked me to ask that I haven’t asked?

When you asked about the co-op, that was going to be my question you didn’t ask, but you asked, you covered most everything.

I want to thank you then for joining me today. I’ve enjoyed learning about Duke’s MEM.

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