The Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering offers two degree programs, the B.S. degree in Civil Engineering and the B.S. degree in Environmental Engineering.

Civil engineering occupies a prominent position as one of the major fields in the engineering profession. Civil engineers are concerned with all aspects of the conception, planning, design, construction, operation, and maintenance of major physical works and facilities that are essential to modern life. Civil engineering projects are typically characterized by extreme size, complexity, durability, and cost. Examples include bridges, buildings, transportation facilities, tunnels, coastal facilities, dams, foundations, and waterways.

Environmental Engineering is an interdisciplinary branch of the engineering profession that has emerged from the societal needs to educate engineers in the causes, control, and prevention of environmental pollution while maintaining industrial and economic growth. Traditionally, environmental engineers were involved in designing and constructing drinking water treatment plants, sewage treatment facilities and water distribution networks. More recently, the environmental engineering profession has greatly expanded and the activities include: detection and modeling fate and transport of contaminants in both natural and engineered environments; applying technology-based solutions for restoring environmental quality; developing and/or modifying industrial processes for ecological preservation and enhanced sustainability.

Both undergraduate programs include a strong base of mathematics, including calculus and probability and statistics, and the physical sciences, followed by a course in planning and engineering economics and a broad range of required and elective courses in engineering science, analysis and design in the areas listed above in each set of program objectives. In addition, the civil engineering program has an engineering science and a surveying requirement and the environmental engineering program has a course in risks, regulations, and policy. Both programs are enriched with a series of required and elective courses in the humanities and social sciences. Elective courses in both programs extend across the areas of structural, geotechnical, hydraulic, environmental, construction and project management, and transportation engineering. Additional elective courses in the environmental program are available from chemical engineering, chemistry, and earth and environmental science. In each curriculum, emphasis is placed on the development of a solid knowledge of civil or environmental engineering fundamentals. Concomitantly, the program is threaded with instruction and opportunities in computer applications.

The civil and environmental engineering programs prepare individuals for entry into the engineering profession or for entry into high-quality programs of graduate study. With proper selection of electives, students may also prepare for entrance into schools of law or medicine, or into master’s-level programs in engineering management or business administration. The civil engineering program is fully accredited, and application for accreditation of the new environmental engineering will be sought at the first opportunity, e.g. after graduation of the first class of students.

A technical minor in Environmental Engineering, available for students outside the department, consists of a prerequisite (Chem 31), three courses chosen from CEE 170, CEE 274, CEE 373 (ChE 373), and CEE 276 (CHE 276), and one from CEE 222, CEE 323 (EES 323), CEE 327 (EES 327), CEE 345, CEE 274, CEE 276, ChE 321, ChE 331, ChE 370, EES 353, and EES 376. At least two of the courses must be from the CEE department.

Five-year programs are available for students interested in a second bachelor’s degree in a major in the College of Arts and Sciences (see listings under Arts-Engineering; Civil Engineering and Earth and Environmental Sciences).