Are you interested in developing solutions to improving air and water quality? Or what about investigating sustainable systems for reusing wastes?
Environmental engineers utilize engineering principles and physical, chemical, and biological science fundamentals to devise effective solutions for current and emerging environmental problems related to human activities. Environmental engineers practice in many areas: green infrastructure for urban stormwater and flood management; air pollution prevention and control; safe drinking water production and supply; sustainable treatment of wastewater and solid wastes; remediation of contaminated sites; ensuring industry compliance with environmental regulations; environmental health and safety in the workplace; alternative energy technologies; design of green buildings; and analysis and modeling of big data to guide societal responses to global environmental change.
The environmental engineering (EnvE) degree at Rutgers is a unique program administered jointly by the School of Engineering (SoE) and the School of Environmental and Biological Sciences (SEBS). This curriculum will give you a broad and multi-disciplinary education in the fundamentals of environmental engineering as well as proactive learning opportunities to utilize classroom learning in applications and design. A wide range of courses are offered to help you understand the impact of engineering solutions in a global, economic, environmental, and societal context.
Degree Programs
The environmental engineering program is preparing students to act as leaders in the community by applying environmental engineering solutions that have global and societal benefits and are consistent with the principles of sustainability.
Students take basic engineering courses and physical, chemical, and biological sciences in the freshman and sophomore years. In the junior and senior years, the fundamentals are applied for multidsciplinary problem solving in various environmental fields.
Undergraduate
A four‐year undergraduate program is available where students receive a Bachelor of Science degree. Students will matriculate through SOE, and after two years will transfer to SEBS, thus taking advantage of the resources offered by both schools.The BS degree program through the School of Engineering is accredited by the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) as an environmental engineering program. This program prepares graduates for taking the Fundamental of Engineering (FE) examination pursuant to becoming a licensed Professional Engineer (PE).
Undergraduate/Graduate
The graduate and undergraduate programs in environmental engineering (EnvE) offer a combined BS/MS program enabling qualified EnvE undergraduate students to be expedited into the MS graduate program, thus providing those students the possibility to earn an MS degree in a shortened time frame. EnvE undergraduates who have attained an overall GPA of 3.2 or higher and have completed (or are completing) their sixth semester are eligible to apply to the BS/MS program. Students usually apply during their sixth semester or right before their seventh semester. The interested students must have completed 96 credits of coursework by the end of their sixth semester of undergraduate study
Professional Opportunities
As an environmental engineer, you will solve problems related to a wide variety of environmental issues. Your efforts will largely encompass initiatives to protect human health and the environment by providing clean water and air, designing sustainable infrastructure, enabling recycling and waste disposal, providing services to accomplish remediation of contaminated sites, and solving many other environmental problems plaguing today's natural environment.
Environmental engineers can look forward to excellent career opportunities following graduation. Numerous consulting firms that specialize in solving environmental problems exist in the Northeast, around the nation, and the world.
With an environmental engineering degree, you could choose many career paths:
- Air/water quality engineer
- Environmental consultant/engineer
- Energy conservation engineer
- Process engineer in industry
- Bioremediation engineer
- Green infrastructure engineer
- Hydraulic and hydrologic modeler
- Environmental specialist in government or industry