Independent Work & Thesis

The MAE department uses a hands-on approach to education, with extensive opportunities for laboratory and design work throughout the curriculum. The program is designed to prepare the graduate for an engineering career and give each student the ability to continue to grow professionally. The independent work is designed to support the overall objectives of the departmental undergraduate program. In particular it enables students to undertake realistic design projects, or to conduct challenging scientific research. Thus, the independent work program for MAE concentrators is an important complement to formal coursework and affords students the opportunity to collaborate closely with faculty, staff and graduate students while working on real engineering problems. 

Independent work objectives 

In broad terms, the MAE Independent Work program is designed to: 

Goal 1: Challenge the student’s ability of properly posing real-life engineering problems; 

Goal 2: Challenge the student’s ability to provide feasible solutions to open-ended problems throughout research and design; 

Goal 3: Provide the students with an opportunity for the integration of multiple disciplines and for showcasing depth of technical knowledge in the chosen subject; 

Goal 4: Provide a framework to acquire contemporary laboratory and computational skills; 

Goal 5: Bridge the undergraduate education to professional practice.

While sophomores and juniors embark on independent work to explore different facets of the field, and to acquire specific empirical and computational skills, a minimum of one semester of independent work is required in the senior year. Senior Independent work is regarded as the capstone experience for both the Mechanical and Aerospace programs, and our students are encouraged to complete a yearlong project, either individually or as a part of a team; final reports of yearlong individual projects qualify as a Senior Thesis.

Click here to view the Independent Work Guide.