Unrestrictive Engineering Programs

College Search & Selection
1

<p>I want to major in engineering, but I also have a strong interest in the arts and would like to take classes in that field (or others) in college. Now, I know most engineering students have crazy workloads, but what are some colleges that have fewer core class requirements for engineering majors and a good array of programs outside of strictly technology/engineering/etc?</p>

2

<p>Finding a school where there are fewer core courses in an ABET-accredited department is going to be rough, I think. </p>

<p>Any medium to large state uni with engineering will meet your need for arts departments.</p>

<p>So too will some smaller private unis like Bucknell, Lehigh, and Carnegie Mellon which pride themselves on their non-engineering students.</p>

3

<p>The minimum content for ABET accreditation of an engineering major is:</p>

<ul>
<li>25% of course work in math and science.</li>
<li>37.5% of course work in engineering.</li>
<li>humanities and social studies breadth requirements (not specified, but must exist; for example, Brown has breadth requirements for engineering majors but not other majors).</li>
</ul>

<p>However, schools vary in terms of whether their engineering majors require the ABET minimum amount of course work in math, science, and engineering, or if they require more than the ABET minimum. This may also vary by major. In addition, the amount and specification of humanities and social studies requirements also varies.</p>

<p>There are some schools where students have the option of an ABET-accredited degree or a non-ABET-accredited degree with fewer engineering requirements (e.g. Yale, Dartmouth). Stanford dropped ABET accreditation of some majors when it reduced the minimum engineering course work from 37.7% to 33.3%.</p>

<p>However, ABET accreditation of your engineering degree is often important if you want to work in engineering, particularly in civil engineering, or if you otherwise want to get a Professional Engineer license, or if you want to take the patent exam. And, unless the school is very well known (e.g. Stanford), ABET accreditation in many areas of engineering (e.g. chemical, civil, electrical, materials, mechanical) is seen as the necessary and sufficient condition by employers determining whether that kind of engineering degree from the school is credible. There are some fields like biomedical engineering and engineering science where ABET accreditation is not seen as being as important.</p>

4

<p>I agree with #1. Carnegie Mellon specially likes to get its students to do that kind of science - humanities integration.
But very selective and not much fin aid.</p>

5

<p>As mentioned above, ABET accreditation requires certain CORE (eng’rs have fewer Core than A&S students)</p>

<p>however, if you attend a school that will accept your AP credits, then those credits can free up your schedule. I have seen engg students use the AP English, AP Calc, AP History, AP Physics, AP Chem and some others to free up over 30 Core credits. </p>

6

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</p>

<p>Depends on the school. Brown requires more breadth requirements for engineering majors than for other students. MIT and the CSUs require the same breadth requirements for all students.</p>

7

<p>^ Yep. Take those AP exams seriously. Also, you can take a good deal of humanities/liberal arts courses through your general ed requirements. </p>

<p>USC has 4 social science/humanities/etc. general ed requirements out of 6. For engineering, general ed 4 (science) can be swapped for another general ed 1 or 2 course (both liberal arts categories). This is called the Viterbi Wild Card. That gives you 5 liberal arts courses. Here: <a href=“http://dornsife.usc.edu/general-education-requirements/”>http://dornsife.usc.edu/general-education-requirements/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>A sample engineering 4-year plan: <a href=“http://viterbi.usc.edu/assets/179/91178.pdf”>http://viterbi.usc.edu/assets/179/91178.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Also, the two required writing courses have “themes.” You are free to choose social science themes, even as an engineering major. If you count those, that’s 7 guaranteed lib.arts courses. Skip intro courses with AP credit, and you have even more options.</p>

<p>You might not be able to get a minor within the 4 years, since most general ed courses can’t be applied for that, but you can definitely explore your interests. :)</p>

8

<p>Note that some schools have significantly greater humanities and social studies (H/SS) course requirements than others. For example, MIT requires 8 H/SS courses and Harvey Mudd requires 11 H/SS courses, but Brown only requires 4 H/SS courses for engineering majors.</p>

9

<p>Okay, thanks for the info. It’s good to know the min required credits, and I’m going to go into college with 7 APs under my belt, so those should definitely help.</p>

10

<p>Check out Harvey Mudd if you have the stats. Don’t get me wrong, the engineering students (and everyone else) work crazy hard there. But they also have a commitment to allowing students to explore a concentration in something outside the STEM areas, too. And the other Claremont Consortium colleges make it easy to do that.</p>

11

<p>A fair number of schools will let you pick your non-engineering requirements from a broad list under the specified categories.</p>

12

<p>Check University of Rochester. <a href=“Degree Requirements (BA and BS) : Advising Handbook : College Center for Advising Services : University of Rochester”>Degree Requirements (BA and BS) : Advising Handbook : College Center for Advising Services : University of Rochester;