Lessons learned while (maybe) educating optomechanical engineers

The discipline of optomechanical engineering has few dedicated courses and no complete programs at universities in the US. Yet, optomechanical engineering is a discipline that is vitally important to many sectors, including defense, aerospace, semiconductor, military, medical, and more. To truly turn optomechanical engineering into a complete discipline, educational programs must be established where the spine of the program is optomechanical engineering, rather than it simply existing as optional elective courses. This paper details the possible framework for such a program based on lessons learned from educating students at both the University of Rochester and the University of Arizona, which contain the two most prominent optics education programs in the US.