I see some colleges offer Mechanical engineering and some offer Engineering with Mechanical concentration. What is the difference between the two? Is the curriculum the same and is one better than the other? Thanks.
Can you share what schools you are looking at?
Often major and concentration are two ways of saying the same thing but I absolutely can’t speak for the specific colleges/programs your child is considering.
You should be able to check the course catalogues for each college (generally can be found online) and/or the college website (look in the academics section and go to the specific area of interest) – many schools list required classes for that discipline. Then you can see for yourselves if there is any meaningful difference in curriculum.
Are all schools/programs your child is considering ABET accredited? If yes, I expect both would be just fine.
2 Likes
First of all, for mechanical engineering I would check to be sure both programs are accredited through ABET (click here for the search page: https://amspub.abet.org/aps/name-search?searchType=institution)
If they are both accredited as mechanical engineering degrees, they should cover much of the same basic curriculum. After that, I would look at the schools’ web sites for the four-year plans for each degree, and see exactly what is covered, how heavy the course load is, what sort of options students have, etc.
1 Like
East Carolina University and UNC Charlotte.
East Carolina University and UNC Charlotte.
Do a deep dive on the electives available as well. From the links provided by Collegemom, it looks like UNC Charlotte has much more robust offerings.
1 Like
So, smaller departments often do not have the resources to offer a particular major and prefer a general ABET accredited engineering curriculum while offering a few electives geared towards specialization. It is not very common but I have seen several schools that do this.
1 Like
Thanks. Is the career path the same for both? I would think General engineering will be less preferable by employers looking for engineers with specialization? I can see general engineering as a good choice if the student wants to explore engineering.
What career path is the student looking for?
UNC Charlotte has an amazing motorsports program, so it would be high on my list if the student has an interest in automotive or motorsports. (My son considered it, too.)
I can’t speak about employers. You could look at college scorecard to see how the grads are doing. My son has been admitted to UNCC and it is a very good school for engineering. He did not apply to ECU. If I had to choose, all other things being equal (cost, fit, culture), UNCC wins hands down.