2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Civil engineering is one of the oldest and broadest fields of engineering. There are numerous subdisciplines that undergraduate civil engineering programs (referred to as programs) cover including transportation, geotechnical, water resources, environmental, construction, and structural. Accreditation agencies and engineering societies do not have a consensus on how many subdisciplines must be taught to undergraduate students, instead they provide flexibility in curriculum development. Because of this lack of definition, content varies among programs even though practicing engineering in many subdisciplines requires significant educational depth in their respective area of the profession.

Structural engineering requires both educational breadth and depth to be proficient according to practicing engineers. In fact, some jurisdictions require a structural engineering (SE) license beyond a professional engineering (PE) license. This demonstrates the move to further define a distinct body of knowledge to practice structural engineering. Past studies of program content have focused on surveys of practitioners and academicians to determine which topics are necessary for entry-level structural engineers. This study aimed to synthesize what structural engineering courses are offered by civil engineering undergraduate programs in the United States. The civil engineering curricula at a representative sample of undergraduate programs accredited by the ABET Engineering Accreditation Commission (EAC) were reviewed to determine what structural engineering courses are required, offered as undergraduate elective courses, or offered as graduate elective courses. Data were collected from 101 programs in 25 course categories. The results were analyzed based on required courses, elective courses, and courses only available to graduate students. In addition, differences in the typical curriculum at programs in different regions of the country and programs with or without graduate education were reviewed.

The data indicated that there are standard core courses that over 80% of programs require students to complete including statics, mechanics of materials, soil mechanics with a laboratory, civil engineering materials, and introductory structural analysis. Furthermore, over 70% of programs offer the following topics in a required or elective undergraduate course: dynamics, steel I, reinforced concrete I, and foundations. While many programs offer a robust list of graduate course offerings in their catalogs, none of the programs require the following courses and fewer than 40% of universities made them available to students in undergraduate programs: seismic, wind, finite element methods, structural dynamics, steel II, concrete II, masonry design, prestressed concrete, and bridge design. The data showed that universities conferring graduate degrees offered more courses, but only some courses were directly available to undergraduate students. This demonstrates the need for structural engineers to learn a significant amount of material on the job or pursue an advanced degree after graduation from an ABET-accredited undergraduate program.