Florida Institute of Technology, also known as Florida Tech, is an independent private technical research university

Institute of technology

Institute of technology is a designation employed in a wide range of learning institutions awarding different types of degrees and operating often at variable levels of the educational system...

 located in Melbourne

Melbourne, Florida

Melbourne is a city in Brevard County, Florida, United States. As of 2009, the population estimated by the U.S. Census Bureau is 78,323. The municipal area is the second largest by size and by population in the county. Melbourne is a principal city of the Palm Bay – Melbourne – Titusville, Florida...

, Florida

Florida

Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...

, United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

. Founded in 1958 as Brevard Engineering College, the institute has been known by its present name since 1966. Florida Tech's curriculum is largely focused on engineering

Engineering

Engineering is the discipline, art, skill and profession of acquiring and applying scientific, mathematical, economic, social, and practical knowledge, in order to design and build structures, machines, devices, systems, materials and processes that safely realize improvements to the lives of...

 and science fields. As of 2010, the institute had an on campus student body of 3,600, almost equally divided between graduate- and undergraduate-level students, with the plurality of them focusing their studies on engineering and the sciences.