In December 1994, the Brazilian government regulated three new engineering undergraduate degrees. One such degree was in Control and Automation Engineering. The paper discusses how, in Brazil, Control Engineering moved from a relatively small group of courses within Electrical Engineering curricula to an undergraduate degree in its own right. It presents a short review of undergraduate control education in countries around the world. The authors also present an overview of the control engineering profession, real-life applications, and state-of-the-art in Brazilian industries. Finally, the paper describes the major issues taken into account during the conception of this new engineering degree at the