For Prospective Students

Thinking About Majoring in Civil or Environmental Engineering?

MIT's Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE or Course 1) is a close community of people who share common interests and goals. Large enough to offer a range of opportunities, CEE is also small enough to provide personal attention. Freshman orientations, inter-university design and building competitions and career events in our department are all student-driven. Faculty members know who you are and can help you with your education as well as with your post-MIT plans.

What Can You Expect From an Education in Civil and Environmental Engineering?

Civil and environmental engineers are concerned with some of the most pressing problems of our world, including public infrastructure renewal, access to clean drinking water, environmental remediation and sustainable solutions to energy needs.

The Course 1 undergraduate program prepares students to face these tremendous challenges by providing a sound education in math, physics, and science and engineering fundamentals, all while emphasizing hands-on design projects and case studies that supply context and motivation. Students are taught how to combine theory, measurement and modeling to develop a good understanding of the problems at hand and point the way to desirable solutions.

Our students form a close-knit group; they like to design and build gadgets, they care about the environment, and they care about making a difference in the world. CEE undergraduates work side-by-side with graduate students and faculty members on projects in remote sensing, energy harvesting, high-performance computing, genomics, fluid mechanics and new materials.

What Degree Programs Do We Offer?

The three CEE undergraduate degrees — Civil Engineering (1C), Environmental Engineering Science (1E) and Civil and Environmental Engineering degree (1A) — share a common core, usually taken in the sophomore year, that includes subjects in ecology, mechanics, mathematics and engineering design. In the junior and senior years, students build on the core by taking more specialized subjects in their chosen degree tracks.

The Course 1 engineering design lab sequence introduces sophomores to design and fabrication in a supportive team-oriented environment. The Class of 2008 made a splash in the Charles River by building and deploying a network of environmental monitoring buoys. The Classes of 2009 and 2010 designed and built energy-harvesting machines: one was a bicycle that harvests and stores the energy generated by the cyclist, the other a turbine that collects wind energy.

Students in the senior engineering design class also design and build projects, including full-scale portable footbridges that can support a ton of concrete blocks.

Our departmental unit requirements are among the lowest in the MIT School of Engineering (180-183 units beyond GIRs), providing flexibility for students to pursue minors, study abroad and interests outside engineering.

And After Graduation, What Will You Do?

Besides the obvious career options of working for a civil or environmental engineering firm, a CEE education provides a good foundation for careers in engineering design, ecology, education, law, medicine, public health and government service.

CEE alumni teach and carry out research in universities. They work for small and large firms in many fields, start their own businesses and hold leadership positions in government and nonprofit organizations.

"Today's responsible civil engineer must be aware not only of technical design issues but also of more efficient and 'greener' materials, socially and environmentally responsible construction methods and the need to collaborate closely with architects to achieve the best combination of art and functionality. ... I suppose what I like most about MIT's approach is that it's a good combination of theory and practical application. As a result, I feel I have an intuitive understanding of structure and form that can be easily applied. I am quite glad that I chose to pursue civil engineering at MIT." —Ricardo Davila '06

"I think the thing I enjoy most about the department is the people. Everyone wants you to succeed and tries hard to help you along. I think being a small major helps, but in general the professors, administration, lecturers, upperclassman and everyone else are just nice and friendly." —Lindsey Sheehan '07

"Civil engineering helped me develop the analytical, reasoning and professional skills that I continue to use in my career as a transportation planner (for the MBTA)." —Melissa Duella '00

"The CEE requirements exposed me to a wide variety of fields within civil and environmental engineering but were flexible enough to let me specialize in transportation and urban planning. During my senior year I had lots of time to take graduate-level classes and do a UROP on an MBTA project: intermodal transfers from rail to bus at the Alewife T station. These experiences helped me decide to go to grad school and make me feel really prepared as I begin my master's degree in transportation at UC Berkeley." —Laura Stonehill '06