MAT2 is pleased to share this update from Baker College Associate Director of Business Development Mark Lagerwey:  

“Baker College is currently enrolling students for our sixth cohort of the MAT2 Associate of Applied Science in Mechatronics apprenticeship program. We have eight sponsored spots to fill for fall 2020 – all currently outside the Cadillac area. We hope to enroll 10-12 students total, including several non-sponsored tuition-paying students. We continue to have quite a bit of student interest following our visits to the career technical centers around West Michigan.  

With our other two cohorts still taking classes, we anticipate around 40 students on campus this fall. Baker College is currently planning on-ground instruction through Thanksgiving, after which classes will move online for the remainder of the fall semester due to Covid. 

Baker College’s revised MAT2 Associate of Applied Science in Mechatronics program remains a cohort model with work-school requirements but now will also be financial aid eligible because it meets all requirements of following our full-time schedule and includes more than 30 weeks of school each year. This will enable Baker College to choose to offer the program to sponsored students as well as open it to traditional tuition-paying students beginning in fall 2020-21.  

The program has also been reduced to a more traditional associate’s degree with 63 credits, reduced from 76. Competencies from classes that were removed have, in most cases, been added to remaining classes that are being rewritten to maintain the rigor of the program. 

Having the tuition-paying model available this fall will provide Baker College a good alternative to sponsored positions as industries are currently more reluctant to sponsor students as they work through the difficulties of reopening after the Covid-19 pandemic and associated layoffs and financial stresses. 

Other details of the new program: 

  • 63 credits, including three 1-credit WRK work experience classes – one in the first year, one in the second year, and one in the third year  
  • Program for non-sponsored students to include: 
  • One 16-week semester in fall 2020 
  • Six 8-week school terms and six 8-week work periods (optional for non-sponsored students) (summer sessions will be 6 weeks beginning in 2021). 
  • Sponsored students will still follow the original MAT2 model, being employed by industries that pay their tuition, wages, and stipends and require commitments from students to continue working for the company for 2 years after graduating from the program. 
  • Non-sponsored students will be provided work opportunities and be encouraged to work during the work periods. 
  • The program will remain an ‘apprenticeship.’ It was recently approved in its new format by the MAT2 Strategic Steering Committee at the state level.” 

 

Contact Mark Lagerwey for any further questions at mark.lagerwey@baker.edu or 231.357.0851.