I was recently told that “Engineering is a five year degree”.
I thought it only took four years.
Even at a school like Harvard that would require some humanities, would an Engineering Major only take four years?
Thank you.
All engineering degrees can be completed in four years. However, if you do a semester of co-op that could put you at least one semester above four years. And if you dropped or failed a class that’s required for graduation, then you’ll have to make that up. It’s not uncommon for engineering majors to take five or more years to graduate.
I managed in four years, but I placed out of a couple of classes and then took a couple of classes during summer vacations. It would have been hard for me to take enough classes during eight regular semesters to graduate.
Engineering is designed to fit into a 4-year time period, but many people take 5 years because so many later classes depend on completing prerequisites at a certain time and that isn’t always possible.
Also, I don’t know what Harvard has to do with any of this. All engineering programs require some degree of a core humanities curriculum.
@boneh3ad I brought in Harvard because they are not known for being generous with AP credits, whereas state schools are. I’d be able to easily test out of all Gen education at U of Florida.
@MaineLonghorn Generally, do you have to pay for classes taken during the summer. (I’m mainly asking for expensive private schools).
I took some classes from Austin Community College. The ones I took at UT during the summer I had to pay for, but it was cheap back in the dark ages ($4 a credit hour!).
@MaineLonghorn Thanks for the info. I guess it definitely isn’t time to worry about this stuff just yet. Gonna be a senior next year 
I just think it would be weird to pay for single classes at schools that don’t charge per credit hour (most private schools).
There’s no such thing as a free lunch. If you take classes, you will have to pay for them. I’d avoid taking summer classes when possible. You are better off spending summers in internships or working in a lab than purely taking classes.
Most schools structure their engineering majors as four academic year plans (8 semesters or 12 quarters). However:
- Many require credit overloads (i.e. more credits than typically taken), which may be difficult for some students, who may require an extra semester or few if they take normal credit loads (e.g. the engineering major may specify an average of 17-18 credits per semester, but if the student takes the normal 15-16 credits per semester, s/he will need an extra semester unless AP or other transfer credit earned in high school covers some of the courses). Examples: http://flowcharts.calpoly.edu/downloads/mymap/15-17.52MEBSU.GENMEU.pdf http://me.eng.ua.edu/files/2017/01/ME-Flowchart-Updated-Spring-2017.pdf
- A student who takes a semester or quarter off to do co-op will extend calendar time to graduation, although s/he may only take 8 semesters or 12 quarters of school. Some schools build their curricula around co-ops, such as Northeastern, Drexel, and Cincinnati.
- A few schools structure their engineering majors for more than four academic years. Florida public schools' summer session requirement causes many students to take 8.5 semesters to graduate (counting the summer as 0.5 semester), though some may use AP or other transfer credit in conjunction with the required summer courses to graduate in 7.5 semesters. Dartmouth typically needs more than 12 quarters to complete the ABET-accredited BE degree, and limits the number of quarters that one can take overload schedules.
Note that all ABET-accredited engineering majors are required to have some general education requirements, though they may vary by school. For example, Brown has no general education requirements for most majors, but requires four humanities and/or social studies courses for students in ABET-accredited engineering majors (this is still fewer than at some other schools like MIT and Harvey Mudd).
If summer sessions are necessary for whatever reason, it is best to take them in the pre-frosh summer or the frosh/soph summer, since summer session offerings tend to be more limited and biased toward lower level courses, and your later summers are the ones where you are more likely to get a major or career relevant summer job.
Since when is 17-18 hours considered a credit overload? It wasn’t at my school.
“Overload” means relative to the usual number of credits per semester needed to graduate.
For example, it is common to require 120 credits to graduate generally, or 15 credits per semester average over 8 semesters. But an engineering major may require more than 120 credits to complete all of the subject requirements, so the student must average more than 15 credits per semester to complete the engineering major in 8 semesters (unless s/he brings in useful AP or other credit earned in high school).
Overload at both my kids’ schools is defined the same as it was when I studied engineering many moons ago. A full-time student was 12-18 hours and an overload was more than 18. Overloading, for both of them, required advisor’s permission and extra cost for the credit hours above 18. My older one took 19 hours a few times, and the younger has taken 19-20 hours every semester.
As to the OP’s question, four years is doable at most schools if you stay on sequence. Both my daughters had loads of AP credit. The first one opted to stay the full, four years and completed her BS and MS in ChemE in that time. The younger one is starting her fourth year and should graduate on time with two degrees with little overlap (BS in BME and BMusic). Both did take two courses in summer school the first year once they laid out their plans, which allowed for internships in subsequent years.