The Engineering major provides graduates with a uniquely well-rounded education, designed to expose students to the complex socio-cultural and economic reasons for engineering problems and the effects of engineering solutions, so that they become professionals who value diverse perspectives and respect the full trajectory of an engineering issue from its origins to the teamwork necessary to produce solutions, to the communications and dissemination of information. Our students come from highly diverse backgrounds, and the program is designed to help them to realize the assets they come with, and use them to propose solutions which they could only arrive at by valuing their assets and those of others.
In the Environmental Engineering concentration of the major, students learn to design systems and products that protect human and ecosystem health, and that ensure sustainable development at both regional and global scales. In this concentration, the focus will be on water resources, including improving access to clean water, identifying and mitigating microbial and chemical pollution in water, and promoting strategies for water treatment and reuse.