<p>I'm curious. Consider an individual with a degree in mathematics but little exposure to the sciences and even physics. Is there much room to consider Graduate School in Engineering? Specifically fields like Civil and Industrial Engineering.</p>
<p>Yes, you can go to grad school in engineering without an engineering undergraduate degree. You need a sufficiently strong math and physics background so if you major in one of these areas you'll be okay. Check the requirements for a few engineering grad programs. At worst, you may have to fill in some gaps, which could take you an extra year.</p>
<p>We checked this out in some detail for our D who is interested in engineering as a career, but wants to go to a LAC that doesn't offer engineering and get a broader liberal arts education as an undergraduate than an engineering degree would permit.</p>
<p>Yes you can.
I got my undergraduate degree in environmental science and recently got accepted in to a few environmental engineering graduate programs. Things you can do is check the school's website to see what their prereqs are for entering students without a strong background in engineering and you can start taking these prereq classes. hope that helps.</p>
<p>I know here in Materials Science & Engineering we get a lot of Chemistry and Physics undergrads in our graduate programs. We're one of the more science-oriented engineering disciplines out there, though, so it might be a bit different than civil or IE.</p>
<p>What in particular do you want to do within those fields? If it's some sort of mathematical modeling then I imagine you'll stand a decent chance to get in.</p>
<p>What area, specifically, and why?</p>
<p>If you're looking to work in optimization algorithms and stuff, you'll be fine.</p>
<p>As you probably know, applied math is considered engineering at some universities, and so the answer would be yes. But when you say industrial engineering, do you mean operations research? If so, I think the answer would also be yes. There are also some interdisciplinary programs that re basically about modeling, applied to various economic, scientific, or engineering questions. Math would be a good background.</p>
<p>As for civil engineering, you might look for a post-bac program. For example, S of a friend of mine graduated from a LAC in math/physics and went off to an engineering college in Turkey to catch up on some courses so he could go on in engineering. It was both cheaper than doing the same here, and an adventure.</p>
<p>Civil engineering could be fairly difficult, depending upon what area of civil you'd want to go into. If you're looking at structural at all, you'll need to go back and take several design courses... There are around four or five prerequisites for most structures masters programs, so while you could probably get accepted to a program, it'll mean perhaps an extra semester or two of makeup work. Talk to the grad admissions people at the departments you'd like to apply to. They'll have a better idea of what needs to be done.</p>
<p>It can be done, but whether it's easy or not depends upon which specific area you'd like to go into... Optimization algorithms and industrial engineering stuff might be easier, as others have mentioned, but some areas will require a lot of catching up.</p>
<p>I once mentioned before that I know a guy who got his bachelor's in biology at Harvard and then got accepted into (and completed) a master's in Civil Engineering at MIT. Nor did he have to take any makeup work, despite never having taken any design courses in his life.</p>
<p>But that's an extreme case.</p>
<p>I'll state what is hopefully pretty obvious:
It depends upon what coursework the individual has completed, and what type of research they plan to do in grad school. Clearly if they have no background in structures and they want to research bridge design, they will probably have some makeup work to do.</p>
<p>However, if the focus of their math coursework is in numerical methods and they want to study computational structural analysis, they are probably in great shape. </p>
<p>To answer your question generally, it is not a requirement, per se, that you have an engineering undergraduate degree to get into engineering grad school, but the type of undergraduate coursework completed should suggest that the student can be successful in the program to which he is applying.</p>
<p>
[quote]
I once mentioned before that I know a guy who got his bachelor's in biology at Harvard and then got accepted into (and completed) a master's in Civil Engineering at MIT. Nor did he have to take any makeup work, despite never having taken any design courses in his life.</p>
<p>But that's an extreme case.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Yep... I recall asking about that, and you mentioning that he was doing something that was more analytical than practical. It's possible, but depends highly upon what you intend to use the degree for.</p>