Princeton University

 Contacts

Undergraduate Representative:   Michael Littman
D202A Engineering Quadrangle
(609) 258-5198
mlittman@princeton.edu

Undergraduate Administrator:    Jo Ann Love
D230 Engineering Quadrangle
(609) 258-5169
jolove@princeton.edu

Undergraduate Education

The Department offers two accredited degree programs, one in Mechanical Engineering and the other in Aerospace Engineering.  Careful planning and the selection of technical electives will permit the requirements of both these programs to be satisfied simultaneously.  To satisfy the needs of students with a wide range of career objectives, either program may be combined with certificate programs such as Engineering Biology, Applied and Computational Mathematics, Materials Science in Engineering, Engineering Physics, Robotics and Intelligent Systems, and Engineering and Management Systems.

The  favorable ratio of faculty to students in the department means that they can be easily contacted for advice and discussions.  All Departmental students engage in Independent Projects during their program, or select to write a senior thesis, and this affords them the opportunity to collaborate closely with one or more faculty members and their graduate students while working on real engineering problems.  The multi-disciplinary nature of engineering also means that faculty in other departments can be associated with such projects, further increasing the scope of the exploration.  Students are also able to initiate projects of their own with the help of a suitable adviser.

Princeton's strengths in the sciences and liberal arts provides a challenging intellectual environment for the  non-engineering courses required for the degree.  For example, one takes economics with students for whom this is a chosen career path and this peer level interaction strengthens the insights one gets from the course.   Residential life also offers challenging opportunities through the College based Freshman Seminar program.  The co-discovery orchestrated by the seminar's faculty member exposes other avenues to understanding challenging topics in significant depth.

The Financial Aid policy of the University means that admissions decisions are not influenced by financial needs and that grants have replaced loans so that it is not necessary to go into debt to attend Princeton.