Department Of Mechanical Engineering

Mechanical Engineering, the broadest of all Engineering disciplines. Mechanical engineers are involved with every aspect of energy generation, transmission, and usage. This would imply that they are involved in almost every aspect of our daily lives, and that would be correct! Mechanical engineers design, build and test a wide variety of products and processes that range from your car and its engine, the refrigerator in your kitchen, the wind turbine that provides your house with electricity, to the space shuttle. Because the industries in which mechanical engineers work are so varied, you can expect that your education and training to be a mechanical engineer to also be very broad. Besides a deep understanding of math and basic physics, mechanical engineers are taught specialized courses in mechanics, materials, thermodynamics, heat transfer, fluid flow, manufacturing, and controls. Mechanical engineering is also becoming more and more intertwined with computer and electrical engineering as computer aided design and modeling becomes more prevalent and also in the areas of robotics and mechatronics.

The breadth of the field of mechanical engineering can be intimidating to some. Because mechanical engineering encompasses so much, it is often the case that as you reach the end of your time at university, you become more specialized in a certain area of mechanical engineering. There are three main different areas of emphasis in mechanical engineering. These main areas are loosely defined and can definitely overlap depending on where your career takes you, but they are a good starting place to think about how you want to focus your career.