Learning to Change the World

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This brand of impact-centered learning requires experimentation, humility, hands-on learning, collaboration (inside and outside of Olin), interdisciplinary systems thinking, and human-centered design. We do it all here at Olin, and we have a lot of fun along the way!

Beginning in their first year, Olin students explore the arts, humanities and social sciences (AHS) as well as entrepreneurship and user-centered design as core parts of their education.

They start with Design Nature, a first-year design course where students design and build mechanical systems inspired by animals that hop, crawl, and swim, and continue throughout their four years with several courses that bridge multiple disciplines, culminating in a yearlong capstone experience.

Students exercise choice in deepening their knowledge—in their major, AHS, entrepreneurship or design—by creating an individualized educational journey either at Olin or at one of our nearby partner institutions, Babson College, Brandeis University or Wellesley College.

These courses and experiences help students grow as critical and contextual thinkers, thoughtful creators, and persuasive communicators.

Majors

Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE)

Mechanical Engineering (ME)

Engineering (E)

Concentrations

Bioengineering (E:Bio)

Engineering Computation (E:C)

Engineering Design (E:Design)

Engineering Robotics (E:Robo)

Engineering Sustainability (E:Sustainability)

Stella ’24

At Olin, I can really dive in and take initiative in my classes.

If I want to learn how to use reclaimed materials in a project, I have the freedom and support to do so.”

Around The Oval

1 MILLER ACADEMIC CENTER (MAC)

2 CAMPUS CENTER (CC)

3 MILAS HALL (MH)

AROUND THE OVAL

1 MILLER ACADEMIC CENTER (MAC)

2 CAMPUS CENTER (CC)

3 MILAS HALL (MH)

Design & Entrepreneurship

Design Nature (DesNat) is a hands-on, bio-inspired design course that is taken by all students in their first year. In this introduction to mechanical design and prototyping class students design and engineer a toy that captures the wonder of nature in a fun, playful way.

Products & Markets (P&M) is Olin’s introductory entrepreneurship class and is taken by every student in the second semester of their first year. In this course students are introduced to Olin’s unique definition of entrepreneurship, which is built on experimentation, grounded in the context of engineering and driven by the question: “How do we create value?”

Value for our users, customers, selves and the world. In small, dynamic teams, students explore their entrepreneurial curiosity and pursue their own definitions of value by creating real products, services and businesses and then testing them with real users and customers.

Collaborative Design (CD) teaches students how to create a shared understanding of the people they design for and with. They do this by choosing a group of users whom they wish to develop a deep understanding of (think service animal trainers, utility workers, or zookeepers); they work in teams in a studio environment (using lots of sticky notes) and ultimately develop detailed concepts and models of authentic new products and services.