<p>I was wondering if there are any graduate engineering programs for non-engineering undergrads?</p>
<p>Here’s one of top 5 engineer school statement on admission requirement :</p>
<p>The criteria used in determining each applicant eligibility for consideration shall include: (1) evidence of award of a bachelor degree or its equivalent (prior to matriculation) from a recognized institution and graduation in the upper half of their class (Masters) or upper quarter of their class (Doctoral); students must show evidence of preparation in their chosen field sufficient to ensure profitable graduate study; (2) for international applicants, satisfactory scores on the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL). From eligible candidates, departments may make final admission decisions based on a combination of factors, including academic degrees and records, the statement of purpose, letters of recommendation, test scores, and relevant work experience. Also considered are the appropriateness of the applicant goals to the degree program in which they are interested and to the research interests of the program’s faculty. In addition, consideration may be given to how the applicant background and life experience would contribute significantly to an educationally beneficial mix of students. </p>
<p>Applicants who do not satisfy basic admission criteria may, for sufficient reason, be admitted with the approval of the Graduate Committee as established in the statutes and bylaws of the Institute.</p>
<p>To me, your question is like following: </p>
<ul>
<li>I didn’t study biology and chemistry in college but can I still get accepted and succeed in Med school?</li>
<li>I didn’t take LSAT but I wanna get into law school? Can I?</li>
</ul>
<p>I mean if you don’t have the fundamental knowledge, background and theory of engineering in undergraduate study, how can you do well in upper class that requires higher level of understanding from previous study? you will either fail out because you can’t catch up tons of material or end up saying this isn’t the path I should take in graduate school.</p>
<p>nmt - there are LOTS of graduate engineering programs available to non-engineering undergrads! The issue comes down to what specific area of engineering you want to study. Grad study is very specific, and you can generally gain a “sufficient” level of preparation in any of a few different fields. Science majors typically can transfer into at least one or two engineering fields as long as they can match their own skills to specific research areas. Non-science majors and science majors striking into truly uncharted territory are the ones who are generally out of luck.</p>
<p>For example, my field is computational electromagnetics in electrical engineering. My cohort includes physics, comp sci, and math undergrads. While some of them had to take some “catch-up” classes after they arrived, all were admitted and all seem to be doing well. They lack certain engineering skills, but are more advanced in other areas and are in no way too far behind to keep up.</p>
<p>
These are not good examples - the OP was asking about his major. Certainly med schools draw from dozens of majors so long as the applicants have taken certain courses, and they don’t really care about the dozens of other classes not relevant to the program. This is just like grad school - if the research area requires an advanced understanding of electromagnetics and computational science, that’s what they care about, not what your diploma says. And the LSAT comment is meaningless as well - he did not say he was planning on skipping the GRE, and law schools take a huge number of students from diverse backgrounds - I know law students with backgrounds in political science, philosophy, communications, and engineering.</p>
<p>The question is to point out that whether student can succeed in graduate school without the sufficient background knowledge from college. </p>
<p>If the student have not taken the biology or chemistry courses in school, he/she will surely lack the fundamental knowledge to take on harder courses and have to relearn everything in college to catch up to be par with other students in the med school</p>
<p>Lawyer requires great reasoning skill. Some can be lawyer without reasoning skill if he/she wants to become mediocre lawyer who just do paper work but he/she will not be able to perform well in court cases where it requires fast thinking and reasoning in very fast driven situations. </p>
<p>If he majored in Physics or Mathematics in college, sure he can major in Graduate school for engineering but he’s understanding is limited. Let’s say he majored in Physics and goes into Electrical Engineer program. He understand vast amount of knowledge in Electromagnetic compatibility and RF area. He calculate the radiation pattern of antenna using maxwell equation and does his part of the roll in the electormagnetic field. (he can do it using HFSS and other CAD tool etc) But he will surely lack his skill in circuit. He will have to redo his entire undergraduate study if he decide he wants to go into Integrated Circuit area where the bottom level circuitry behind antenna. </p>
<p>Bottom line, if he have majored in Physics, Mathematic sure he can shoot for engineer program in master level. But his choice of study in graduate school will be limited unless he have the engineer background from college. Simply my point is if you don’t have the fundamental knowledge of the master program you want to study, don’t go into engineer.</p>
<p>
Sure! This was my point, that the individual prerequisites are important, not the major! IF you have not taken math, chem, and bio, you’re not getting into med school. If you have not taken heavy E&M and computer science, you are not getting into my research group in electrical engineering - which disqualifies not only most physics and math undergrads, but most EE undergrads as well.</p>
<p>
Hmm… I am not sure what field of law the philosopher or comms major went into, but the poli sci grad is an assistant DA, the engineer is a patent attorney, and the econ/MBA I know is now a corporate tax attorney. None of them are mediocre, all of them spend most of their time on paperwork, and at least two of them are paid 4 times my full-time engineering salary. The whole point of law school admissions is that “reasoning skill” is their most important requirement and is related to dozens or even hundreds of different majors. </p>
<p>
Absolutely, there will be many fields where a physicist or mathematician is woefully underprepared for grad school, just as there are often areas where they are actually better prepared. Further, most engineering undergrads are really only prepared for a few research areas anyway - I could not have gotten into a good grad program for circuit design despite my EE degree. Ultimately, this just means they have fewer opportunities going into engineering grad programs, and not much else. When they graduate, their undergrad degree only matters if they are completely unable to find a job related to their grad research area.</p>
<p>
My point is that for grad programs, the “fundamental knowledge” required usually boils down to a couple of classes that actually relate to the topic - and often those courses are available to more than just engineering majors. Some of them aren’t even engineering classes!</p>
<p>Many engineering graduate programs are willing to consider applicants with undergraduate majors in mathematics or science. For example students with strong undergraduate backgrounds in physics can go into electrical engineering or mechanical engineering graduate programs with very little undergraduate coursework to make up.</p>
<p>Somewhat counterintuitively it often is easier for a science major to get into a PhD program in engineering than a terminal master’s program. Engineering PhD programs tend to be more research oriented, so bright physics majors with substantial research experience often are welcome. Terminal master’s programs on the other hand, usually are intended as a year or two of advanced training for people who already have engineering undergraduate degrees, so they can be less welcoming to science majors.</p>
<p>Boston University has a special program for students who want to transition from a non-science or non-engineering undergraduate major to engineering. Check out the following web site.
[BU</a> Engineering | LEAP](<a href=“http://www.bu.edu/eng/leap/]BU”>Late Entry Accelerated Program (LEAP) | College of Engineering)</p>
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<p>You said
For physics major here’s the run down of master in Electrical Engineer major where they can go into without previous engineer background knowledge or relearn any courses in EE: </p>
<p>Bioengineering - No. requires knowledge of DSP for medical imaging process which physics major does not prepare for.</p>
<p>Computer Engineering - No. Require knowledge of VLSI, computer architecture, circuit design and microelectronic circuit. This area is pretty much give up point to physics major students unless they go back to school for EE as undergraduate. </p>
<p>Digital Signal Processing - No. require knowledge of DSP </p>
<p>Electrical Energy - No. Require knowledge of circuitry and energy conversion which needs previous knowledge from EE </p>
<p>Electromagnetics - yes. Probably best fit for physics.</p>
<p>Electronic Design & Applications - No. Integrated Circuit field. Require circuit, microelectronic knowledge of transistor in order to get in. </p>
<p>Microsystems - Possible. There are within this field that require only thermodynamic but does require knowledge of transistor and diode.</p>
<p>Optics and Photonics - yes. This is total physics</p>
<p>Systems and Controls - no. require knowledge of circuitry and feedback network.</p>
<p>Telecommunications - No. require coding skill which physics major does not prepare them for. Possibly for wireless communication. </p>
<p>SO there are possibly 2 areas Electromagnetics and Optics that physics major can go into without any knowledge of electrical engineer courses. I say it is limited. </p>
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<p>Courses requirement for certain EE areas like Computer Engineer and Electronic Design & Applications, it will require learning all major core curriculum from EE program previously to just grasp what’s going on. You will NOT be able to learn these areas in master program without the “Fundamental knowledge” of EE.</p>
<p>The point is, gtg, the question was:</p>
<p>“I was wondering if there are any graduate engineering programs for non-engineering undergrads?”</p>
<p>The bottom line is that the answer is generally yes, if the student has taken the correct pre-requisites and evidences background knowledge of the engineering principles necessary to succeed in the program. OP didn’t ask if they’d be able to get into an engineering program without ever having taken calc 2 or something; they asked if there were programs that accepted students who didn’t major in engineering (or at least that’s the understanding). The answer to that question is yes; students who majored in something else in college but take the necessary classes and do well in them can get admitted to graduate programs in engineering.</p>
<p>Your problem is the assumption that a physics major or whatever else never took an engineering coursework or wasn’t planning to take any engineering coursework to prepare themselves for admission. You answered a question that wasn’t asked.</p>
<p>Now you can argue about what fields they’ll be able to grasp, or what their limits are, but that’s an entirely different question.</p>
<p>Here are some links for OP:</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.americangraduateeducation.com/folder1/subfolder4/lib_art_eng_degree.htm[/url]”>http://www.americangraduateeducation.com/folder1/subfolder4/lib_art_eng_degree.htm</a>
<a href=“http://www.engr.wisc.edu/cee/enveng/[/url]”>http://www.engr.wisc.edu/cee/enveng/</a>
<a href=“http://bulletins.psu.edu/bulletins/whitebook/graduate_degree_programs.cfm?letter=A&program=grad_a_b_e.htm[/url]”>http://bulletins.psu.edu/bulletins/whitebook/graduate_degree_programs.cfm?letter=A&program=grad_a_b_e.htm</a></p>
<p>Generated from a general Google search for “engineering masters for non-engineering majors”</p>