Easier Transition to Engineering Degrees for Students

Northwest Vista College students will now be able to get an easier transition to a bachelor’s degree in Engineering with a new partnership between Alamo Colleges and the The University of Texas at San Antonio.

TATE, which stands for UTSA Transfer Academy for Tomorrow’s Engineers (TATE) program, will allow NVC students to co-enroll at both institutions, and take engineering courses taught by UTSA and NVC faculty. Upon completion of the NVC component of the program, students will continue courses at UTSA to obtain their bachelor’s degree in any of the six UTSA engineering degree programs, which includes Biomedical Engineering, Chemical Engineering, and Civil Engineering.

Qiaoying “Joy” Zhou and Thomas Pressley of NVC’s Math and Engineering department said that through TATE, NVC students will transfer to UTSA as true juniors without missing key courses and key prerequisites. The program was designed for 30 students per cohort.

This new program provides many benefits to students. It makes the transfer process streamlined and gives them an opportunity to earn an associate of science degree at NVC while pursuing a bachelor’s degree. And, it also gives NVC students access to top employers including the U.S. Air Force, Valero Energy, H-E-B, Intel, CPS, USAA, IBM, Accenture, Proctor & Gamble, and more.

Joy and Thomas added this joint admissions program also opens the door for many students who don’t have the resources to an engineering degree. It provides students who are economically disadvantaged with the opportunity to start at Alamo Colleges at low cost (or no cost through AlamoPromise) while still being able to keep pace with their UTSA counterparts and graduate with a bachelors in engineering in four years total.

Additionally, students who are not mathematically prepared to start a university engineering program in calculus in their first freshman semester, can attend Alamo Colleges for a pre-summer or even a pre-fall semester to work on their math level before joining the program.

TATE is looking for new students and on July 9 will hold a virtual information session from 3 pm to 5 pm. To attend the session, go to this link.

To learn more about the program and its requirements, which includes being calculus ready, visit the NVC website at https://www.alamo.edu/nvc/academics/tate/