On Tuesday, October 25, two thousand new students began their first year at the Technion. The faculties most in demand for undergraduate degrees are Medicine, Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, Mechanical Engineering and Industrial Engineering and Management.
The 2016-17 school year began at the Technion with approximately 2,000 new students. This year the Technion has approximately 14,000 students in 18 faculties: around 9,500 undergraduate students and around 4,500 graduate students, including 1,109 doctoral candidates.
Of the new students who began their undergraduate studies, 43% are women.
The proportion of women among graduate students is 48%, and among doctoral candidates, 43%.
Over the past decade there has been a significant increase in the percentage of undergraduates from minority groups attending the Technion. Of the students from minority groups who began their studies this year, 61% are women, a higher proportion than among Jewish students and higher than any other academic institution in Israel and the Middle East.
Addressing the new students at the ceremony marking the opening of the school year, Technion President Prof. Peretz Lavie said: “This is a holiday for you and for us. You are here today after having proved, through hard work and achievements in high school or in your pre-academic studies, that you deserve to be students at the Technion. You are joining one of the world’s leading academic institutions, but first and foremost you are joining a new family: the Technion family. In this extended family, secular and religious Jews, Muslims, Christians, Druze and Circassians of both sexes coexist in full equality, conducting a constant, pertinent, open and tolerant dialogue.”
New programs that opened at the Technion in 2016-17 school year:
- The Data Science and Engineering Program (Undergraduate):
The goal of the program, which is offered by the Faculty of Industrial Engineering and Management, is to train engineers to handle Big Data in a variety of applications. In view of the increase in the amount of data produced worldwide, there is a need for engineers who can manage the information, i.e., collect, store, extract and analyze information from large databases. Prof. Avigdor Gal, who heads the new program, explains that “here, as in other cases, the Technion’s advantage is manifested: a combination of experts from various disciplines, including statistics, computer science, information systems, game theory, cognition, and economics. This is the integration that served as the basis for the new program, which addresses the growing and important field of information science and Big Data.”
- Master’s Degree in the Views Program
The Views Program for Technion graduates, held at the Faculty of Education Science and Technology, is expanding and will now offer a master’s degree. Starting this year, the program will also offer a master’s degree and teaching certificate with a full tuition scholarship. In light of the success of the Views Program, in which hundreds of Technion graduates received a full tuition scholarship for an additional undergraduate degree in teaching science, math and engineering, the Technion now offers a new and upgraded program for its outstanding graduates. The master’s degree program includes a teaching certificate for post-primary schools (seventh through twelfth grades).