The Nuts, Bolts, and Joys of Engineering

Engineers have a multitude of courses to choose from, but there are a few specific classes or requirements that every Jumbo engineer must complete to graduate. These are great opportunities not just for expanding your understanding of real world applications for engineering , but also places where you can build community and relationships with like-minded Jumbos.

EN -1 Introduction to Engineering: Every engineer at Tufts is required to take an EN-1 course during their first semester at Tufts. These courses focus on project work, engineering ethics, and the engineering design process, with all options customized to students’ personal interests. Not to mention, the course topics are just fun—Remote Exploration with Roomba, anyone? Through their many projects, these courses provide students with a hands-on introduction to various aspects of engineering and the tools to apply their learning to real-world issues. Tackling real-world problems encourages students to think outside the box, and Tufts engineers engage in this kind of learning from day one. And our Introduction to Engineering courses are anything but surface-level—they allow for and encourage innovative thinking, collaboration, and real impact. While always challenging, the School of Engineering is not a hyper-competitive space. Engineers at Tufts readily work with one another to learn new concepts and ideas and then put them into practice. Collaborative courses like Introduction to Engineering provide the foundation for such an environment, where the only competition is with yourself to grow as an engineer and a person. EN-1 course options for the Fall 2022 semester include Sci-Fi Bioengineering, Bridges for Resilient Cities, and Impact of Self-Driving Cars.

ES -2 Introduction to Computing for Engineering: Though all engineers at Tufts are required to take EN -1, ES -2 is a little more unique. Depending on their major, students have the option to take either this course or Introduction to Computer Science to fulfill the requirement. Introduction to Computing for Engineering is always offered in the spring semester and is designed to provide an introduction to engineering problemsolving with the aid of computation software. Students will gain fl uency in a computer language, understand how to use tools designed specifi cally for engineering computing, and apply those tools to analyze data. Most engineers will take an ES-2 section that focuses on Python, but MATLAB is an option too!

Senior Capstone: Tufts engineers end their undergraduate career in the same way in which they began: through collaborative, hands-on, project-based work providing practical solutions to complex problems through their senior capstone projects. The senior capstone will test your engineering skills and will also grant you the opportunity to dive deep into an area of engineering alongside an interdisciplinary team of fellow Jumbos. With opportunities to be both playful and practical, the engineering senior capstone projects are a culminating experience for our undergraduates, showcasing their creativity, curiosity, and collaborative know-how. For many seniors, the fall semester is spent gathering data and creating a proof of concept so that the spring semester can be spent developing, implementing, and testing the project before the end of year showcase. Previous examples of projects include “Hazard Detection & Positioning System for Asteroid Navigation” and “Personal Plasma Water Filtration.” The possibilities are endless!