We believe that creating a culture that values diversity and inclusion is not just the right thing to do, it’s the smart thing. Research finds that innovation and entrepreneurship benefit from diversity in gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, ability, and experience. We also recognize that there is room for growth in meeting our diversity goals, so we are actively engaging in initiatives to ensure our actions match our words. We focus on diversity and inclusion throughout every facet of our program including student outreach, curriculum design, and job placement. We are committed to transparency and accountability and are continuously measuring, reassessing, and revamping our approach to diversity and inclusion so that all members of the M.E.T. community can thrive.
Our action-oriented approach to diversity and inclusion
Current Diversity Statistics
205 students are enrolled in the M.E.T. program for the 2022 – 2023 academic year.
It should be noted that diversity is self-reported and we believe our program to be more diverse than what is represented in these statistics.
Gender Breakdown
- 67 (or 33%) identify as female
- 134 (or 65%) identify as male
- 2 (or 1%) identify as a different identity or decline to state
- 2 (or 1%) identify as gender queer / gender nonconforming
Race & Ethnicity Breakdown
- 60% Asian (Pacific Islander, South or Southeast Asian and other Asian)
- 2% Black or African American
- 3% Chicanx / Latinx
- 14% White/Caucasian
- 12% Declined to State
- 8% selected “Foreign” and are International students
First Generation Students
- 7% First Generation Students
Geographical Breakdown
- 69% California Residents
- 23% Out of State Residents
- 8% International Students
Major / Track Breakdown
- 8% Bioengineering + Business
- 1% Civil Environmental Engineering + Business
- 65% Electrical Engineering & Computer Science + Business
- 8% Industrial Engineering & Operations Research + Business
- 3% Materials Science & Engineering + Business
- 10% Mechanical Engineering + Business
- 5% Engineering Undeclared + Business
Current Initiatives for Advancing Diversity and Inclusion
We recognize that the M.E.T. Program has more work to do to increase the diversity of our student body. To meet our goals, we have implemented several initiatives aimed at recruiting more diversely and creating a more inclusive culture. Additionally, we will follow up on the success of our initiatives by measuring and tracking our progress on diversity and inclusion over time. Find out more about our current initiatives below.
High School Outreach
We recognize that not all students are offered the same opportunities to pursue careers in business and engineering. To help narrow this gap, we will be launching a high school summer enrichment program that we hope will increase access to a business and engineering immersive experience. By exposing high school students to business and engineering early and encouraging them to apply directly to our program, we hope to increase the diversity of our applicant pool, and ultimately our student body.
Admissions Outreach
To attract students from a variety of backgrounds, we have invested in several admissions outreach programs. For example, our program office participates in targeted outreach activities organized by the Office of Undergraduate Admissions. Moreover, to make our application process more inclusive, we will be adding a second supplemental essay prompt to our applications which will allow students from all backgrounds to showcase their diverse set of experiences. To find out more about our essay prompts, click here. We have also revamped our admissions process to minimize the extent to which individuals’ biases affect admissions. In addition to having people from a diverse array of backgrounds serve on our admissions team, each member is required to undergo implicit bias training.
Scholarships
We provide a limited number of needs-based and merit-based scholarships to our admitted students. Through our scholarship programs, we hope to encourage students from all backgrounds to pursue careers in business and engineering through the M.E.T. program.
Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging Workshops
In our curriculum, we believe the ability to lead a diverse workforce is a critical workplace skill. As such, we have updated our course curriculum to include required DEIB workshops. These workshops take place live and in-person. Through our DEIB workshops and curriculum, we aim to educate students on the importance of diverse teams, help students detect and manage unconscious bias, and give them the tools to build inclusive cultures. We also leverage data and statistics to measure and track the efficacy of our workshops, allowing us to gauge students’ DEIB competencies in real time.
Student Involvement
We believe that student involvement in DEIB is vital to our program’s success. As such, we have included a DEIB position on our student board. The student elected to this position will serve as a liaison between the student body and the M.E.T. program office. Through this role, we aim to ensure that students’ voices are heard.
Entrepreneurial Fellows Program
We recognize that not all students have the same access to summer internships, which is why we implemented the Entrepreneurial Fellows Program (EFP) to jumpstart students’ careers. Through EFP, each student in the program receives a grant of $2000/month ($6000 total) for 10-12 weeks of internship engagement with an affiliated startup partner between June and August.
EFP Testimonials
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The best part of my internship experience was the fact that I got to see how a startup is actually built. I enjoyed the fact that I could learn so much in such a short time and I was able to build confidence in reading and synthesizing information from scientific papers.
Aashna D.
Internship
Instalab
BioE + B ’24
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It was great being able to get so much hands-on, in-person experience after over a year of doing all school work online. My team was very willing to help and teach me while also giving me the freedom to figure things out and try things for myself.
Riley H.
Internship
Mezli
ME + B ’24
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EFP has been absolutely MASSIVE for me. I went from being a kid who had done robotics in HS and had taken a couple of coding classes to someone who now knows how to contribute to an industry-standard piece of software. I am easily 2-3x as good of an engineer after working for Puzzl (now rebranded to Zeal) this summer. Learned TONS.
Stephen K.
Internship
Puzzl
EECS + B ’24
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The number of technical skills I picked up from the internship exceeded my expectations, ranging from discrete technologies like containerization and database migrations to softer but equally important experiences like code review practices and software project management tools. Another equally interesting portion was learning the business side of the startup, specifically all the complex interactions between different parties in the health sector in the United States and how Segmed entered the health data market as a startup.
Jeremy L.
Internship
Segmed
BioE + B ’24
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The best part of my internship experience was getting to learn new skills and gain an understanding of how classroom knowledge could be applied to real work.
Miranda T.
Internship
SownToGrow
EECS + B ’24