With the renewable energy economy driving California’s economic recovery, UC Berkeley has stepped in with a new degree program in Energy Engineering to ready its students for the economy of the future.

According to UC Berkeley, the major was designed to address the “increasing importance of energy in all engineering endeavors” and is currently the only one of its kind in the United States.

Training Students For 21st Century Jobs

“This is a suitable major for the future,” said Shaofan Li, campus professor of applied mechanics. “Energy is more useful to society in general, and more and more people are moving in that sector.”

In a time when fewer and fewer students are enrolling in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics), the new UC Berkeley major is exactly the kind of innovation we expect from the nation’s top public university (and the alma mater of many of the Reset team – from founder Phil Ting to some of our bloggers). UC Berkeley’s decision is expected to catalyze the importance of energy conservation within the scientific community. Graduates of Energy Engineering are meant to be “energy systems experts” and will be the first generation of graduates to hit the job market with the sole purpose of creating renewable sources of energy.

A Laboratory For Innovation

The new Energy Engineering major is just the latest example of how an excellent UC, CSU and community college system drives our economy and pays a generous civic return on investment. All the more reason to make sure all of our students have access to affordable education  and to make sure we continue to fund and nurture our renewable energy economy.

For more information on UC Berkeley’s new major, and their already existing conservation efforts, please visit the UC Berkeley Energy Engineering website.