Integration of Science, Technology and Engineering
Undergraduate Certificate
InSciTE program overview
There’s a skill gap in STEM education. It doesn’t show up on a transcript, but employers notice it immediately. It has nothing to do with lab techniques, coding languages or test scores. It has everything to do with what happens when people have to work together and communicate scientific concepts to others.
InSciTE (Integration of Science, Technology and Engineering) is a four-year undergraduate certificate for students in the College of Science and Engineering. It’s designed to teach the parts of STEM that most courses ignore: how to manage group work, communicate clearly, process data efficiently, resolve conflict and lead a project that wasn’t built for one person to carry alone.
Students join a small cohort and take one class each spring, progressing together. The final year is built around a full-length, student-led research project. There’s no prewritten script. The topic, the plan and the execution are all up to the team. The learning curve is real, but that’s what makes the experience stick.
Program Snapshot
What makes InSciTE different from other STEM programs?
Each year in InSciTE builds on the year before—but not like a traditional course sequence. There’s no memorization, no clean labs with guaranteed results. Instead, the focus is on how people work together and communicate when the outcome isn’t certain.
You’ll learn how to stay in the conversation when ideas conflict. How to give feedback that’s specific and useful. How to revise plans midstream without losing momentum. Meetings get better. Group decisions move faster. The discomfort of early collaboration starts to feel like a challenge worth taking on.
By senior year, your team will lead a research project of its own design. The topic is yours to define, and so is the process. Sometimes the timeline will crack. People will miss meetings. What made sense at the start will stop working halfway through. That’s when the real work begins—when the team has to respond, shift and carry it through anyway.
InSciTE highlights
As a student in InSciTE, you'll:
- Build the skills STEM programs skip: Practice collaboration, data and project management, conflict resolution and communication with the same team over four years.
- Grow with a consistent cohort in a community where you can be your authentic self: Take one course every spring alongside students from different science and engineering majors.
- Lead a project from start to finish: Design and carry out a yearlong capstone research project based on your team’s question.
- Learn through real tension and trial runs: Handle deadlines, navigate group disagreements and figure out how to keep momentum.
- Learn in a program designed for access: InSciTE builds equity into every step—from the application process to how classes are structured.
- Stand out with experience, not just a transcript: Leave with projects you helped create and the skills to talk about it clearly and confidently.
Careers & Outcomes
By the time you finish this program, you’ll have led a team, managed setbacks and delivered something that didn’t exist before. That’s what employers remember.
| Career | Projected Salary |
|---|---|
| Forensic Science Technician | $69,260 |
| Biological Technician | $53,560 |
| Research Scientist | $74,342 |
| User Experience (UX) Developer | $108,729 |
| Data Engineer | $98,860 |
| Hardware Engineer | $138,080 |
InSciTE in action
Odil Dilmurodov came to CMU from Uzbekistan and found a learning community in InSciTE that helped him grow—academically, personally and professionally. In this short video, Odil shares what it was like to collaborate across disciplines, lead a research project and find a sense of belonging in a room full of new people.
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