Technical Electives

Upon acceptance into upper division status, you will choose a faculty advisor to assist in Selection of your program of technical electives. The Undergraduate Advising office is also available to assist you with scheduling.

All technical electives must be upper division courses Objectives of the elective courses are two-fold:

  1. to synthesize required ME EN courses (basically this is accomplished in 5000-level ME EN courses)
  2. to broaden the student’s knowledge in other related technical areas.

Considerable latitude is allowed in the selection of technical electives. All 5000-level courses in the College of Engineering are acceptable. A list of acceptable courses in Mathematics and Physics is given below. Other upper division courses from the College of Science and the College of Mines and Earth Science must be petitioned. Technical Writing is not an acceptable technical elective course. Courses numbered higher than 5999 are not acceptable for undergraduate credit.

ME EN 4999 - Honors Thesis/Project, ME EN 5920 - Design Project, ME EN 5930 - Undergraduate Thesis, and ME EN 5950 - Independent Study qualify for technical elective credit. These courses allow the student to have experiences not normally available in regularly scheduled classes.

To initiate a project under one of these numbers, the student must:

  1. Contact a faculty member with related interests who is willing to act as an advisor
  2. Complete all information on the required form (available from the SSO)
  3. Register for the desired number of credit hours (set by the faculty advisor)

A maximum of three (3) credit hours of Cooperative Education, ME EN 5910, may be counted for technical elective credit. Contact the Director of Undergraduate Studies before enrolling in ME EN 5910.

Technical Elective Options

Students may choose to specialize in particular areas of mechanical engineering. The areas and courses listed below are suggestions:

Aerospace Engineering

  • Mechanical Engineering 5710, 5830, 5400, 5410, 5510, 5200, 5300, 5920 (Aircraft/Spacecraft Design)

Automatic Control & Robotics

  • Mechanical Engineering 5200, 5210, 5220, 5410
  • Computer Science 5320
  • Electrical and Computer Engineering 3720, 5510

Thermal Systems and Design

  • Mechanical Engineering 5600, 5710, 5720, 5800, 5810, 5820, 5830

Ergonomics and Safety

  • Mechanical Engineering 5000, 5100, 5110, 5030, 5040
  • Bioengineering 5030
  • Civil and Environmental Engineering 5603, 5604

Energy Systems Engineering

  • Mechanical Engineering 5800, 5610, 5200
  • Civil and Environmental Engineering 5700, 5710
  • Physics 5110, 5450, 5590

Mechanical Design and Manufacturing

  • Mechanical Engineering 5010, 5020, 5030, 5110, 5300, 5400, 5410, 5520, 5920

Solid Mechanics

  • Mechanical Engineering 5300, 5400, 5410, 5500, 5510, 5520

Biomechanical Engineering

  • Mechanical Engineering 5100, 5200, 5210, 5300, 5410
  • Bioengineering 5001, 5101, 5201, 5301

Technical electives are the final phase of undergraduate education in Mechanical Engineering. Therefore, selection is very important and the quality of one’s education depends, to a large extent, on how well this selection is accomplished. Some ME EN 5000 level courses are taught on an alternating year basis. Plan the scheduling of these electives carefully.

Students interested in graduate work may prepare themselves with additional advanced mathematics courses.

Courses from other non-engineering programs or departments that are appropriate for ME EN students are:

MATH

  • 4200, 4750, 5010, 5040, 5050, 5080, 5090, 5250, 5410, 5420, 5440, 5600*, 5610, 5620, 5650, 5660, 5710, 5720, 5740, 5750

PHYSICS

  • 3610, 3620, 5010, 5110, 5420, 5450, 5460

*if Math 5600 is used to fulfill the Numerical Techniques requirement, in place of ME EN 2040, it may not be counted as a technical elective.