An experience report of inter-institutional engineering degree programs in the Amazon region

There is a huge difference among the universities located in Brazil. It happens mainly because of the different development stage of the local industry, as well as, the amount of money invested in local colleges. Particularly this is true for courses demanding expensive laboratories and well-trained professors. In many Brazilian states, there are no graduate opportunities offers in engineering for the local community. The only possible choice for the ones who wish to attend to such an engineering master/doctorate program is to move to another city, and it means, sometimes, travelling more than 4.000km around Brazil. Manaus, capital from Amazonas state, is one of those distant cities with lack of advanced courses opportunities. In order to solve this problem, one local School of Engineering, the Institute of Education, Science and Technology of Amazonas (IFAM) proposed two different programs together with two of the best engineering schools of Brazil. The first one aimed one Master degree in mechanical and materials engineering and were developed by the Federal Technological University of Paraná (based on Curitiba city), and the second was a Doctorate program on electrical engineering together with the Federal University of Minas Gerais (based on Belo Horizonte). This paper goal is to present the developed work, to discuss this model of education, and finding ways to improve such programs.