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 Sustainable Environments Engineering concentration of the major, students learn to design systems and solutions that improve the built and natural environment, and protect human and ecosystem health. The main focus is to ensure sustainable development at both local and global scales as measured by appropriate metrics, including social justice as a measure of effective design. This concentration encompasses a range of civil and environmental engineering elements, from protecting and improving access to natural resources, and sustainable optimization of building materials, to the components of urban and natural infrastructural systems - all of which can be designed to contribute to a sustainable environment
