Engineering Physics programs without Engineering

[Scott Hill]

Is anyone aware of a liberal arts college (or other such school) that offers Engineering Physics without having a full-blown Engineering program? I'm a physics professor at a small school and we're investigating the feasibility of adding such a program ourselves; it would be useful to see some examples.

 

[donpacino]

Well your end goal at a minimum should be to get ABET accredited.

http://www.abet.org/accreditation/

I would look through here and ensure that any system you come up with will meet these requirements.

 

[Scott Hill]

Thanks for the suggestion.

Some concrete examples (if they exist) would be helpful though. It's easy to offer Engineering Physics when you already have an engineering program, but I'm wondering if anyone is managing it without one.

 

[Dr.D]

I suggest that partly the difficulty, or lack thereof, depends on what you intend that degree title to mean. Does it mean a physics degree with just a dab of engineering included, or does it mean an engineering degree with a dose of physics? The title itself lends itself to interpretation either way.

 

[donpacino]

I suggest that partly the difficulty, or lack thereof, depends on what you intend that degree title to mean. Does it mean a physics degree with just a dab of engineering included, or does it mean an engineering degree with a dose of physics? The title itself lends itself to interpretation either way.

I believe the major is meant to sit at the edge of both disciplines. Although I am sure the definition varies from program to program (as does all majors) it was first explained to me as an engineering major that fully prepares one to take a graduate degree in physics or labratory work, as opposed to an emphasis on entering industry. Below is a link to Stanford's engineering physics program.

https://physics.stanford.edu/undergraduate-program/bs-engineering-physics

My advice to OP. I don't think engineering physics without an engineering program is very common, although that is speculation as I have not done very much effort into the topic. I would guess that many engineering physics program that are hosted by the physics department simply have the students take classes from both the engineering and physics departments. That would not work for you though. I would start by looking at schools with engineering physics that started with physics departments before engineering. See if any had engineering physics crop up first, and look at the history to see what they did. It might be difficult to find.

Another option you have is to contact other universities in the area to see if you can do a cross listing to start. If you have another university 30 minutes away (or this new thing called online classes!), students might be able to take some engineering classes at those universities. If you want to keep it all in house, It will likely require teaching new courses in material relatively new to the professors, or at least from another angle. Will the professors be able to handle the extra course load (This is what you are researching I think!)?