There are several outstanding characteristics of Princeton’s engineering program:

• The faculty and students are among the best in the country. Not only would you be taught by faculty members who are among the most accomplished in their fields, but you would also learn through interaction with fellow students as talented as you.
• The scale of Engineering within Princeton University is very important. Our school comprises about one third of the undergraduate student body, and Princeton’s exceptional strengths in the liberal arts play a large role in the B.S.E. curriculum. The School of Engineering and Applied Science embraces six departments to create a community of students and faculty with shared interests.
• The program of study emphasizes engineering’s scientific principles. With a solid command of fundamental principles, practice and application become natural extensions of engineering thought, enabling graduates to adapt to a wide variety of professional situations.
• All engineering students carry out independent investigations as part of the curriculum, either in the form of a full-year senior thesis or in semester-long projects.

The principles of engineering science are not theoretical. We know that the laws of thermodynamics and Maxwell’s equations work. A Princeton engineering education starts with the principles of engineering science, then shows how those principles are validated through application, culminating in the student’s own application of those principles to an engineering problem in independent work.

There is no “ideal type” of Princeton engineering applicant. We are especially interested in students who have done well in the most challenging program of courses that was available at their high school, who have particular strengths in math and science, and who have a sense of intellectual curiosity about technology and its role in the modern world.

For more detail on selecting high school classes to prepare for studying engineering in college, please see our Guidance for High School Students.

36 courses are required for the B.S.E. degree. Among these are engineering general requirements, departmental core and elective courses, departmental independent work, at least seven social science and humanities courses, the University writing requirement, and free electives. Independent work (research conducted by an individual student or small groups of students, under the mentorship of a faculty adviser) carries course numbers and is counted among the 36.

Princeton courses are taught by professorial-rank faculty. Graduate students play a supporting role by assisting in labs and grading and sometimes by leading precepts in the larger lecture courses.

Princeton’s classes are quite small when compared with classes at many other research universities. The departmental courses that you take in your junior and senior years will probably have about 20 to 50 students – sometimes fewer, rarely more. Independent work is, of course, done individually or as part of a team of 2 to 4 students. In your sophomore year, the foundation courses in your engineering department will have about 30 to 60 students (more in Electrical and Computer Engineering and Operations Research and Financial Engineering due to their current popularity). The largest required courses that you will encounter will probably occur in your first year. The general chemistry lecture may have about 200 students meeting three times a week. A weekly Physics 103 lecture may have about 150, but this course is taught primarily in smaller classes of about 15 to 20 students three times a week

A typical first-year engineering schedule includes four courses in the fall and five courses in the spring.

In the fall, engineering students usually take the following:

In the spring, they continue with the following:

Students take the University writing requirement during either the fall or spring of freshman year.

Princeton students may use Advanced Placement scores in a certain subjects, including chemistry and math, to fulfill requirements or start at a more advanced course level. While AP scores are not accepted in Physics, students may elect to take the physics placement test during orientation to assess whether they can fulfill the B.S.E. physics requirement through testing. Students may take the Computer Science placement test to determine whether to start in COS 126, COS 226, or COS 217. Note that the B.S.E. computing requirement can only be fulfilled through Princeton course work, not placement testing.

“Independent work” is our name for undergraduate research projects. In independent work, the student defines the question to be investigated and the data required to address the problem, devises the approach to solving the problem, and presents the results in a professional manner, all under the guidance of a faculty adviser. Independent work is normally done in the junior or senior year. Civil and Environmental Engineering and Electrical and Computer Engineering require a full-year senior thesis. In Chemical and Biological Engineering, Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, and Operations Research and Financial Engineering students may choose between a one-semester senior project or a full-year senior thesis. In Computer Science (B.S.E.), students must complete a minimum of one-semester of independent work, conducted in junior or senior year, and have the option to complete a year-long senior thesis.

Engineering programs include technical electives, humanities and social science electives, and free electives. Although there are a number of school-wide requirements and core departmental courses, there is also a lot of room for choice and breadth. Most engineering students have room for at least three and usually more free electives, not counting the required seven social science and humanities electives and whatever technical electives are part of the student’s program.

First-year Seminars are small classes in which a group of students and a professor work together on a topic of special interest to them. Each year, over 70 First-year Seminars are offered. Students apply to enroll in the seminars, which are regular University classes that count as one of the 36 required for the B.S.E. degree. Most also help fulfill University distribution requirements. A number of engineering students take First-year Seminars each year, and the engineering school encourages their participation in the program.

Most engineering students participate in a variety of extracurricular activities. They can be found on the rosters of Princeton’s intercollegiate and intramural teams, playing in the University orchestra, on the mastheads of campus publications, and taking part in community service activities.

Research opportunities are built into the Princeton curriculum during the junior and senior years in the form of independent work. As a practical matter, you will find that time constraints due to coursework and extracurriculars will preclude significant research involvement during the first two years. Many students are able to arrange summer employment at Princeton doing research with faculty members, and all engineering departments (e.g., MAE and CS) offer structured summer research programs, many of which are open to first-year students, in addition to sophomores and juniors. Other students participate in Research Experiences for Undergraduates programs at other universities, while several each year work abroad under Princeton’s International Internship Program.

A typical departmental program of study consists of core courses, technical electives, and independent work. Some departments have additional requirements such as an upper-level math course. Most engineering departments have organized their programs in the following way:

Sophomore year: courses that cover the general principles of the field, things that you can apply in many different situations and which will enable you to pick up new material easily later on, even decades in the future;

Junior year: more in-depth courses in specific topics as well as a course or two in engineering design, in which you take the general principles and learn how to make useful things;

Senior year: further in-depth courses in your particular areas of interest, plus independent work or a senior thesis in which you take an engineering problem and devise a way to solve it by carrying out the necessary observations, experiments, designs, and calculations, then present it in a professional manner.

In Electrical and Computer Engineering and Civil and Environmental Engineering, students complete a required full-year senior thesis that counts as two courses (one-semester junior independent work is also available). 

In Chemical and Biological Engineering, Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, and Operations Research and Financial Engineering, students complete either a full-year senior thesis or one-semester senior project (one-semester junior independent work is also available). 

In Computer Science B.S.E., independent work consists of one or more one-semester projects, although it is increasingly common for students to connect two semesters of independent work to make a full-year senior thesis. 

Each department has a system for matching students with independent work advisers. Often faculty members list topics that they’d like to have a student work on, but if a student has a personal interest and there is a faculty member willing to supervise it, and it doesn’t cost an immense amount, it’s usually possible to do. Funding is available from the School of Engineering for modest expenses connected with junior and senior independent work and theses.

Students, faculty and staff use both Windows and Apple computers. A variety of computing environments can be found in student clusters throughout the campus. The University’s campus-wide network permits access from many locations, including the dormitories, Frist Campus Center, Friend Center, and the E-Quad, to academic software, on-line information and the Internet. The E-Quad, Friend Center, Computer Science Building, Andlinger Center, and Sherrerd Hall have full wireless access.

The Keller Center for Innovation in Engineering Education offers a minor in entrepreneurship and several student and alumni groups actively support an entrepreneurial ecosystem around campus.

There is no single career path for a Princeton B.S.E. graduate. Many go to work in business or industry upon graduation, some intending to return to graduate study eventually. Others go directly to graduate study with the goal of pursuing careers in research or education. Some become teachers, doctors, lawyers, or astronauts. The B.S.E. degree from Princeton provides a solid technical education and the breadth of serious study in the liberal arts, so the wide variety of post-graduate plans among our students comes as no surprise.