<p>Several days ago I posted about the requirements at UIUC for transfer from civil eng.to mech.eng. (My son applied for mech but was accepted into second choice civil). Many thought I needed to reconfirm the req. since they seemed incorrect. My husband reconfirmed with both the Undergrad Prog.Coord. as well as the Prof. & Assoc. Head, Dept of Mech.Science and Engineering that my son would be required to have 60hrs of completed coursework (2yrs) and a 3.8GPA to transfer from civil engineering to mech.engineering. Although I have a lot of faith in my son's abilities...I don't know about accomplishing that at UIUC...</p>
<p>My DS is currently EE major at UIUC (no pun intended!). He started off in Physics Engineering and the EE staff were helpful in getting him switched after his freshman year. His entry stats into U of I put him in the 50-75th percentile of the engineering school. I would say with his just above B average, his actual academic performance matches his incoming percentile in the class. He has had several friends who wanted to switch into ME from another engineering major. It rarely happens, according to DS, because of the grade point required. A couple of those friends, however, were able to switch into Engineering Mechanics which has essentially the coursework.</p>
<p>The prof. mentioned Engineering Mechanics as an option for my son. Anyone out there have a son or daughter in that major at UIUC who could give more info?</p>
<p>I believe UIUC has the #1 Civil Engineering program in the country. It may well have better career prospects than ME. The 3.8GPA should not be something you count on; sounds very difficult. Also, maybe consider as a Civil major taking all your electives in ME and working on projects with the ME dept. You could be in a position to study ME in grad school.</p>
<p>Thanks GCBMIB and nyquist. Appreciate your posts.</p>
<p>This is the type of information, very important information, that should be considered by applicants to Illinois that plan to get an engineering degree…</p>
<p>USNWR Undergraduate Engineering Rankings</p>
<p>Civil Engineering</p>
<h1>1 - Illinois</h1>
<p>Mechanical Engineering</p>
<h1>6 - Illinois</h1>
<p>The MechSE department at UIUC is huge and generally very close to capacity, which artificially inflates the transfer requirements. They have some sort of “quota” for the department to keep it from getting too large, probably because ABET doesn’t like to see class sizes that are too large and they are regularly pushing the limit.</p>
<p>Engineering mechanics, which is administered by the MechSE department, is essentially a more theoretical version of mechanical engineering. It has slightly more robust math requirements as well as almost no emphasis on machine/mechanical design courses, which are replaced with more theoretical courses in mechanics. It is an especially useful program if you plan to go to graduate school, and the program is very well regarded (better even than the mechanical engineering program I believe). However, the range of career prospects are generally narrower in the engineering mechanics program, as it is more of a niche field.</p>
<p>Engineering mechanics is basically the field on which civil engineering, mechanical engineering and aerospace engineering are built, so someone who graduate in EM would generally be in the market for the more technical jobs for which any of those majors are competing.</p>
<p>It is just something to consider before making any decisions. To be honest, I wish I had done EM instead of MechE when I was there because I think that, while I have felt very prepared for graduate school so far, I would feel even better had I done EM.</p>
<p>At any rate, a 3.8 is no small feat. The transfer chances are therefore pretty slim. However, if it is really what he wants to do, he may as well try it, and if it comes down to it, CivE and MechE have a fair bit of overlap so he could stick it out in CivE, tailor his courses and get an MS in MechE as a backup plan.</p>
<p>University of Illinois UC 2009-10 Completions</p>
<p>165 - Mechanical Engineering
157 - Civil Engineering
7 — Engineering Mechanics</p>
<p>[College</a> Navigator - University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign](<a href=“College Navigator - University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign”>College Navigator - University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign)</p>
<p>The student to faculty ratio for both departments is nearly identical. I believe Civil Engineering is nearly as hard to transfer into with the main difference being simply the number of people who are trying to transfer. That last part is about half speculation though based on my experiences while there, not hard data.</p>
<p>We are not an engineering family so I have next to no background in this area. However, my DS and U of I engineering frat buddies claim the best looking girls are in Civil. 
His other comment was that, in his experience most anyone capable of getting a 3.8, would have been accepted into ME in the first place. I don’t know if this is common everywhere, but U of I is on a grading scale wherein only an A = 4.0. An A- is less. So it adds to the difficulty of securing the required transfer grade point. All that said, he has enjoyed the challenge of his classes and he has really matured in his thinking. I’ll give the school credit!</p>
<p>Thanks all for the valuable info. (-:</p>
<p>ZacalMom, at the end of the day, it seems that you have a problem most families would love to have after your son got admitted to such a highly ranked engineering department.</p>