Undergraduate Program

What is Civil Engineering? Civil engineering occupies a prominent position as one of the major fields in the engineering profession. Civil engineers are concerned with all aspects of the conception, planning, design, construction, operation, and maintenance of major physical works and facilities that are essential to modern life. Civil engineering projects are typically characterized by extreme size, complexity, durability, and cost. Examples include bridges, buildings, transportation facilities, tunnels, coastal facilities, dams, foundations, waterways, sewerage and sewage treatment facilities, and water supply and purification systems. Undergraduate Program Overview The undergraduate program, which leads to the B.S. degree in Civil Engineering, includes a strong base of mathematics and the physical sciences, followed by a broad range of courses in the areas of engineering science and civil engineering analysis and design. In civil engineering, the courses extend across the areas of structural, geotechnical, hydraulic, environmental, and transportation engineering, along with planning, economics, probability and statistics, and measurements. The program is enriched with a series of required and elective courses in the humanities and social sciences. The undergraduate program is structured in a manner which emphasizes the mathematical and physical sciences in the first two years, the essential core courses of civil engineering in the third, while reserving the final year for study in the concentration area of the student's choice. A typical schedule of the first three years may be seen by clicking here. During the final year, the student is enabled to choose technical elective courses in specialization areas such as: environmental engineering, structural engineering, hydraulic engineering, and geotechnical engineering. Particular emphasis is paid over the entire curriculum on the development of a solid knowledge of civil engineering fundamentals. The civil engineering program prepares individuals for entry into the engineering profession or for entry into high quality programs of graduate study. With proper selection of electives, students may also prepare for entrance into schools of law or medicine, or into masters-level programs in engineering management or business administration. For students interested in Earth and Environmental Science, a five-year program is available, leading to two bachelor of science degrees, in civil engineering and in earth and environmental sciences. For students interested in architecture, an Arts-Engineering degree is available. Arts-Engineering is a five-year, dual-degree program administered by the College of Arts and Sciences. The program leads to two bachelors degrees, one from the College of Arts and Sciences and another from the College of Engineering and Applied Science. Special opportunities are continuing to be developed for undergrads such as Integrated Learning Experience (ILE) courses with a course focusing on redesigning the baseball/softball complex. Articles pertaining to past courses may be viewed by clicking "Defending Their Turf" or "ILE Course Fall 1998: Evaluating and Designing an Athletics Game Field Complex", which was published in the February 1999 issue of Civil Engineering Magazine. High school scholars are also given the opportunity to learn more about Civil Engineering through a mini-course offered by the department.