Hinman's CEO vs Quest

Can someone please explain the difference between Hinman’s CEO and Quest? Can they participate in both? is there a lot of overlap if they participate in both (assuming they could get in)? Also, what year did they participate? BTW, my son is freshman MechE major currently in EIP.

My son graduated in 2016 with a BS in MechE and in 2017 with a Masters in Robotics - both from Maryland. He was in both QUEST and Hinman CEOs, so yes, you absolutely CAN do both (he was also in Scholars, so EIP can also be done with both). There is a little overlap between QUEST and Hinmans, but enough difference to make them both worthwhile.

QUEST is a 3 year program (NOT living learning so no residential component) that you apply for in your freshman year. It is super competitive and only open to engineers, business and CMNS majors. They start doing informational sessions in November if I recall correctly and applications open in Dec with a Jan entry deadline (again, don’t quote me as it’s been a while). They teach systems thinking in concrete ways - corporations love this! The idea is that students are paired with other students in different majors so that they learned how to get the best outcome possible to solve problems by taking advantage of each other’s strengths. For example, if they are tasked with reinventing the wheel to be remote controlled (not actually), the engineer would do the physical redesign aspect, the compSci student would do the programming aspect, and the business major would do the market research and finances. Hope that makes sense? After several courses of very project-oriented classes, each team is assigned to a real business for the last semester. The company presents a task for the team to solve - sort of like a school-sponsored internship. Many students are offered jobs with the companies that they are assigned to for this final project.

Hinman CEO’s is a 2-year program that IS a living-learning program so there is a residential component. Admission to Hinman is also competitive but is open to all majors and guarantees housing in South Campus Commons. You can apply in the fall as either a freshman or a sophomore. This program is more about entrepreneurship - it teaches you how to start your own business from an idea. My son applied as a freshman and even though it is only 2 years, he spread it out over the 3 years so that he could resolve scheduling conflicts due to some electives he really wanted. Hinman alum include Kevin Plank of Under Armor and Anthony Casalena of SquareSpace. It is absolutely possible to get a real business started while in college. There is a competition for seed funding to help get started, but even if you don’t have an actual business you want to start, you learn a lot about the process that serves you well later.

I hope that answers your questions? Feel free to pm me if you have any other questions.

@maryversity I was hoping you would respond. Thank you so much. Still digesting your information and will discuss this with my son. I know he is also planning to go abroad for a semester. Is it possible that UMD has too many opportunities for their students (just kidding - the more options, the better).

I wanted to PM you but it looks like a member has to have a certain number of “replies” in order to gain access to messaging? Would you be comfortable sharing what jobs/internships he had during college? and what path he has taken now? Since my son is following along in the same footsteps as your son (MechE and Entrepreneurship), feel free to share any other suggestions/wisdom including where my son could go to get more guidance (the students don’t get an advisor until junior year, right?). And thanks again.