Entrepreneurship lessons are being added to introductory engineering courses at New Jersey Institute of Technology in 2026, where students will be motivated to learn front-end product research and digital drafting by designing their own products.
The adjustment is the second recent change to MET-103, Engineering Graphics and Introduction to CAD, which in 2025 gained additional laboratory time for students to practice using the complex software.
Traditional entrepreneurship is about starting new businesses, “And then there’s this engineering education side, which is more about skill development and mindset,” explained Prateek Shekhar, assistant professor of engineering education. Shekhar led a nearly $500,000 grant through the National Science Foundation’s Hispanic-Serving Institution program to research, implement and study the impact of this component in the mandatory first-year course for mechanical engineering technology majors.
“If you think about the design process, it's about ideation and prototyping in the latter stages, but the first phase is more in terms of understanding user needs and understanding the problem. So that's where the entrepreneurship piece comes in, using some of the tools that are available,” Shekhar noted. “Instead of giving students just a random thing to design, what we want them to do is go out there, go into the field, talk to potential customers, identify what they need, feed that into the design, and then the content comes in as front-end design. So first you're trying to conceptualize the problem using these entrepreneurship tools.”
“They may not create a company down the line, but at least providing them exposure to that environment is really important, I feel, for an undergraduate education — especially for applied engineering technology students who are at the cusp of product development, and for technicians rather than doing theoretical work.”
Shekhar said the ideas will be tested in limited sections, assessed and then rolled out to all sections over multiple semesters.
“One really unique thing about this is that, in that module development process, we are going to hire past students to help us design those modules. We are going to get a couple of undergraduate students who've taken that course, and make them sort of a co-partner in designing those modules.”
NJIT alumni are helping plan the new material
Shekhar said young alumni are also involved. One is Heydi Dominguez, who earned a B.S. in mechanical engineering in 2021 and M.S. in engineering science in 2023. She now works for Legrand, designing electrical systems that go into new buildings.
“I've been working with [Shekhar] on the research end, helping him lead a couple of focus groups as well, and with everything revolving around entrepreneurship and engineering education,” said Dominguez. She’s interested in becoming an adjunct instructor and said she might someday like to expand her family’s construction company.
“I was always curious to see a different side of the business, aside from just the designing and the equations, the calculations for everything, which is why I also minored in entrepreneurship. I wanted to gain some of the skillset and mindset of an entrepreneur.”
Shekhar said he would have liked that opportunity as a college student. “I think from a skills and mindset perspective, it would have helped me a lot to just think about how things I'm learning can be applied to something that's commercializable,” he said. “I also consider this idea about systems thinking, that whatever I'm doing is creating value. So it doesn't have to be entrepreneurial by a startup. It could still be entrepreneurial in your job.”
Additional advisement for the project will come from Research Professor Kathy Naasz, who directs NJIT’s Center for Student Entrepreneurship.
NJIT recently ranked highly for entrepreneurship in a Princeton Review international study, placing no. 33 for undergraduates and no. 19 for graduate students.
Marcelo Cardoso, a senior and mechanical engineering major, said he agrees with the plan to inject entrepreneurship training into design courses.
“I think it's a really good idea, honestly. I feel like that's a great skill to have in general. I went to the career fair, and a lot of that is showing your skills and your personality. And for you to be able to propose a project — now you’re making something that’s beyond just a CAD model and has become something you can use in the real world, and that’s what we really need.”
Cardoso grew up in Newark and Brazil, and now is an officer in NJIT’s chapter of the Society for Hispanic Professional Engineers. He wants to work for a medical devices company after graduating.
“I feel like if I had that mindset when I first started here, that would have given me so many more opportunities to grow and think past just the simple goal of passing classes.”