Schools that offer Capstone engineering courses during the Summer?

The best plan would be to get suggestions from your own school, assuming that they have accepted summer capstone project in the past. Then there would be a precedent and better likelihood that your idea will work

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Additionally, please focus on the OP’s question. What one does in graduate school, providing definitions of “semester,” etc.are irrelevant to the OP.

Most colleges fall into the 15 week category and summer courses might be 11-12 for the full summer and 5-6 for summer 1 and 2. Many colleges are offering winter session courses during the fall and spring semester but usually gened type ones.

What about colleges that have required cooperative education requirements where students work two springs and attend two summers. Their capstone experience would end up being in the summer senior year right?

The biggest problem that I see is that Senior Project/Capstone classes tend to have lots of well thought out prerequisites at each school. ME 4182 at Georgia Tech for example has 7 prerequisites. You would have to convince them that yours all aligned and that yours were rigorous enough to meet their standards.

What school do you currently attend, and why specifically do you want to do this over the summer?

I see two major obstacles:

1 - make sure your college will accept a capstone project from another school - not just as transfer credit, but to meet your school’s capstone requirement. That means you need to talk to both someone in the registrar’s office (to ensure you don’t run into a requirement to complete the final 30 credits at your home campus, or any other school wide requirements), and in your department, because they would be responsible for approving acceptance in place of the specific class. A degree from your school, and your department, indicates that you meet the requirements of your school, and the faculty there are satisfied that you will represent them well. Even if you are allowed to complete the Capstone elsewhere, I wouldn’t be surprised if they then require you to present your project to them for final approval. What do you do, if after all your work they don’t approve?

2 - will you have all the prerequisites at your host institution? Would it be worth taking extra classes this spring in order to be able to take the capstone elsewhere? Purdue has a 2-class sequence, which ultimately is the same as your school, your school just lists it as a single class over 2 semesters. I doubt you would qualify to take the Purdue class, having not taken the first class. Working with a group on another campus could also be an issue, because the rest of the group will have likely worked together before, and have taken their foundational classes together - they will be working from a common background, and you will be an outsider.

Citations need. Please give correct information.

When I look at Purdue’s website for the Mechanical Engineering curriculum it only shows one engineering design course needed and that is ME 463000 “Engineering Design”. This is at the Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN campus. ME 463000 is also offered in the summer as well. If you are talking about Purdue University Fort Wayne campus probably it will require two classes.

The degree plan for Mechanical Engineering from Purdue University only requires one engineering design course.

https://engineering.purdue.edu/ME/Academics/Undergraduate/ProgramMap

From the OP’s initial question it look like he is just asking for which school offers the capstone design project as a summer course. From my research Purdue University at West Lafayette offers the engineering design course in the summer which is equivalent to the capstone design project course.

Re: https://engineering.purdue.edu/ME/Academics/Undergraduate/ProgramMap

Looks like Purdue ME has three required design courses and one that is part of a “choose 2 of 3” set of courses. Courses are described at http://catalog.purdue.edu/preview_program.php?catoid=7&poid=6433 .

26300 – sophomore level introductory design course
35200 – junior level design course
45200 – senior level design course (this is part of the “choose 2 of 3”)
46300 – senior level design course

In other words, the required design courses in Purdue ME are distributed across sophomore, junior, and senior years, with 3-4 semester courses required (rather than just one semester capstone design course). Additional elective ME courses are listed http://catalog.purdue.edu/content.php?filter%5B27%5D=ME&filter%5B29%5D=&filter%5Bcourse_type%5D=-1&filter%5Bkeyword%5D=&filter%5B32%5D=1&filter%5Bcpage%5D=1&cur_cat_oid=7&expand=&navoid=2928&search_database=Filter&filter%5Bexact_match%5D=1#acalog_template_course_filter .

OP - it’s not clear (to me at least) why you want to do this, but it sounds like a scheduling issue and you are trying to complete your degree by a certain time. If this is this case, I’ll offer some recent experience at NCSU that could help. My oldest son found that his last year only needed roughly a semester of work, and tried to figure out a way to finish in December. The ME program there had a two class sequence for senior year. He chased down alternatives and found that he had some “non published” options for courses in other engineering departments that would also satisfy the ME requirements. Had he known this sooner, he could have picked up the needed prerequisites for this path.

So - I’d suggest talking to someone in detail about this at your school to see what other options may exist.

(note to others - NCSU has since updated the senior classes, making them co-requisites, effectively solving the problem)

My son was in a similar situation, but took a very different route. He was way ahead, needing only 15 hours his final year (at a 45 hour per year quarter system school). He couldn’t get out early though because their Senior Project is 3 quarters. Rather than look for a lesser route like the OP is, to cut corners, he decided to do a MS. He started grad classes as a junior and is finishing his MS coursework one quarter after his senior year. He has two quarters to write his thesis be done in 5 total. He took a different path, one that left him with a very robust Senior Project and a thesis based masters. @HPuck35 wisely advises posters that relative to a long career, an extra few quarters/semesters isn isn’t a big deal. Personally, I always recomend a route that results in a little more rather than a little less.

A few extra quarters / semesters was just not something we wanted to have happen,. Both kids graduated on time in four years in engineering and that was our expectation. If either had struggled, we would have had to figure it out but luckily that did not become necessary. At full pay for our state schools, we sent them off with the idea that they needed to go to class and do well and finish on time. They both did it and did very well , despite probably partying too much, and spending time on athletic stuff.

I agree with @colorado_mom . You need to see what your school will allow otherwise it all speculation about how to do it. My son’s capstone was not a direct extension of the previous semester but much of the design thinking and writing was developed in the semester right before. His project was a combined effort of both the Optics dept and the Mech Eng dept. That probably would not have been able to be coordinated if it was a summer capstone.

Hey everyone, thanks for all the responses. I wanted to take it during the Summer because I was unable to take it this semester and I had wanted to start working full-time by Sept.

Ive only found four so far in North America. It looks like you guys were right.

My school does not allow students to take capstone elsewhere. I thought it wouldn’t be an issue since I saw a student from another school taking it here.

Woah eyemgh I didn’t even know that was a thing lol. You can start your grad courses while in undergrad and it counts towards your graduate studies?

@mechcollege, it depends on the school. Many offer a blended BS/MS (BMS), frequently referred to as a 4+1. I’ll paste the particulars from my son’s school below. Scroll down to the Blended section.

An alternative is to just take more classes to deepen the things that interest you. If it can lead to an advanced degree, that’s nice, but it doesn’t have to.

What school do you go to?

Good luck!

https://me.calpoly.edu/graduate-programs/

Make sure you are aware of how the financial aid works too. Some schools (my daughter’s) was 8 semester for the school’s merit aid. No summers, no Maymesters (different FA might have been available, but not the main FA that was awarded to freshmen). There is NO WAY I could have afforded an extra semester without the merit aid. My daughter was on the 4 years and done program!

@twoinanddone, my son lost all FA (merit, and after a career change by both of us, he was eligible for need based aid his last two years) after his switch to graduate status. He wasn’t forced to switch though once he started taking grad classes. He was allowed to change his status much later than we’d all expected, preserving aid.

We were fortunate to have savings that included help from grandparents. Also, without our direction, he started to work second year and contributed to his living expenses. The rule in our house was always undergrad on us, anything else he paid for. Because he worked though, the money stretched enough to cover his MS.

If a student was in the same boat as your daughter, and had to self fund for an additional year, it probably would still be a good investment. It’s estimated that an engineering MS is worth an additional $250k vs. a BS alone over a career.

or see if you can make your summer job project into a senior capstone project. I did that back in the day.