Why Iron Range Engineering?

• Students graduate with skills that employers want and experience to back it up.
• IRE focuses on giving the student body choice in their path to becoming the engineer they want to be.
• Personal connection with instructors who care deeply about student growth.

How does IRE teach engineering?

• Just like engineers in the field, our students work on real industry projects during their entire time with us.
  
• Learning with us can be viewed as a 3 legged stool focusing on technical, design, and professional learning. 
• Students have the ability to steer courses in the direction that their passions lie offering the student choice on the focus area such as mechanical, electrical, systems, industrial, biomedical, civil, and chemical engineering. 
• Faculty give personalized feedback within 24 hrs to maintain the feedback's relevance. In addition, they do fun activities outside of the classroom with students such as skiing at Giant's Ridge or kayaking. 

What fast facts are available?

• IRE has graduated over 150 students
• Students graduating our program have a Fundamentals of Engineering exam pass rate above the national average
• Employment within 6 months of graduation is 95%
• IRE is a satellite program of Minnesota State University, Mankato and is located on campus at Mesabi Range College in Virginia, MN

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Apply to Iron Range Engineering, full 4 year program in Northern MN.

Apply: IRE

Learn More, IRE

Apply to Bell, Junior and Senior program,       1 semester in MN then 2 years in Co-op

Apply: Bell

Learn More, Bell

The Story of Iron Range Engineering

SELF-DIRECTED LEARNING

Practicing engineers need to be efficient, organized, and independent learners of technical knowledge. To achieve this level of self-directed learning requires acquisition of knowledge on how learning works. Iron Range Engineering students acquire strategies and processes, use reflection extensively, and then receive feedback on their development.

Inclusivity and Professional Courage

Inclusivity is valued at IRE as the welcoming of each individual to the learning team, the community, and the profession. This welcoming is achieved through respect, kindness, mindfulness, empathy, and caring. In addition to these attributes and actions, is an appreciation for implicit bias and a continued self-calibration to account for it. Iron Range Engineering students, develop and practice inclusive actions and attributes as well as the professional courage to appropriately act when observing actions detrimental to inclusion.

Service and Protection

​Engineering is a profession that holds paramount the safety of people, the protection of the environment, and the conservation of resources. Engineers serve society. This requires selflessness and the willingness to contribute to the betterment our many communities using our time and abilities. This requires personal attributes of honesty and and integrity as well as high levels of ethical action. Iron Range Engineering students develop this value through the practice of serving others and a gaining of an appreciation of these deep responsibilities.

Difference Makers

Companies and society expect engineers to be "difference-makers", people who innovate, create, and excel. This requires engineers to put their best foot forward, to seek solutions to complex problems, to think entrepreneurially, to be technically sound and professionally adept. Difference makers set high expectations for themselves. They embrace failure as a step to success. They employ a growth mindset. Iron Range Engineering students seek to become difference makers by acquiring a practicing knowledge of fundamental principles, embracing continuous improvement as a way of life, and going the extra mile to perform at a high level, all while acquiring an approach that embraces an appropriate life-work balance.

Reflection and Self-awareness

Engineering professionals have to be monitors of the quality of their work and the impact of their actions. To monitor requires an ability to practice reflection, recounting actions and evaluating impacts, while using the feedback for future continuous improvements. Self-awareness of how one's actions are perceived by and impact others is necessary to perform well on a team or in an organization. Iron Range Engineering students become proficient reflective practitioners through practice and feedback. They continuously evaluate their professional growth and set goals for future development.

Become the engineer you want to be

Learn about the topics you enjoy. Bring your passions into the curriculum. We are here to help,

Apply: IRE

Apply: Bell

Educational Partners

The following institutions partnered to create Iron Range Engineering and continue to partner to raise the bar of what we can do together. Thank you!