Engineering - The Newest Liberal Art
Engineering has been called the newest liberal art. At Columbia Engineering, students not only study science and mathematics and gain technical skills but also study literature, philosophy, art history, music theory, and major civilizations through the Core Curriculum in the humanities.
Students entering SEAS are encouraged to consider the wide range of possibilities open to them, both academically and professionally. To this end, the first and second years of the four-year undergraduate program comprise approximately 66 semester points of credit that expose students to a cross-fertilization of ideas from different disciplines within the University. The sequence of study proceeds from an engagement with engineering and scientific fundamentals, along with humanities and social sciences, toward an increasingly focused training in the third and fourth years designed to give students mastery of certain principles and arts central to engineering and applied science.
Whether you want to become a professional engineer, working in industry or government, or plan to pursue a career in the physical and social sciences, medicine, law, business, or education, SEAS will provide you with an expansive, global education marked by research opportunities and a concern for the common good. It is an education for the real world—an enlightened approach to engineering as part of a web of larger concerns: social and economic, political and cultural.
