There is more to engineering education than science and technology; there is more that is beyond the textbooks, the classrooms and the laboratories; there is more that relates to the cultures of the professional worlds in which graduates aim to work. It relates to the gap between the competitive professional world and the protective world of academia, something that has to do with the human dimension, the cultural baggage and with the need for lifelong learning skills required to maintain

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... itiveness in all fronts. For the past six years, a program developed by West Virginia University in collaboration with universities and industry from Queretaro, Mexico has been addressing many of issues cited above in the context of an experiential exercise. Each year, the program takes place during six weeks of the summer session, in which students and faculty from West Virginia travel to Mexico to join a similar team of Mexican students, faculty plus industrial liaisons to work as a team, despite language and cultural differences. A challenging industrial project (or problem) is posed to each team with a tight schedule and under budgetary constraints.