The Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering is offering a minor in Environmental Engineering. The minor can help to broaden students’ career and/or graduate study opportunities, particularly for those students interested in working in environmentally related fields, but who are earning other engineering degrees. Industrial companies and consulting firms with environmental engineering projects hire non-environmental engineering majors of many types. Students with exposure to the discipline through the minor would have a competitive advantage for those positions as well as for admission to graduate programs in environmental engineering or science.
Environmental Engineering addresses the impact of human activities on the environment and the maintenance of the environment so as to promote human and ecological health. Engineers in the field see the environment as a resource to be protected and sustainably managed for the health of humans as well as for the health of the planet itself. For example, environmental engineers are involved in the monitoring and mitigation of contaminants that result in climate change; the reduction of emissions from manufacturing and power plants; the recovery of resources and energy from waste streams; the design of alternative energy sources; the clean-up of hazardous waste sites; the restoration of streams and lakes damaged by human activities; the manipulation of microbial characteristics for the degradation of pollutants and the allocation of water to provide both a water supply and a minimum stream flow to support recreational activities. The discipline is inherently multidisciplinary, both in terms of the types of science applied – chemistry, physics, biology and geology – and in terms of the teams of professionals that typically work on environmental engineering projects.
The minor program is for undergraduate students in the College of Engineering who would like to integrate a focus in environmental engineering coursework within their degree. It is particularly suited to students in majors in which a fluid mechanics course is required, since this course may be double counted towards the minor.
Eligibility
To be eligible to declare the minor, students must be in the College of Engineering, in good academic standing (min 2.0 GPA) and have completed the prerequisite coursework for the core courses with a C or better. A student seeking a BSE in Civil or Environmental Engineering cannot earn the minor in Environmental Engineering. To declare the minor, schedule an appointment with a faculty program advisor.
