Scholarships at St. Thomas
97% of first-year students receive merit scholarships that bring the average tuition cost down to $21,000 per year.
Civil Engineering at St. Thomas will teach you the skills to design and update our country’s infrastructure, including roads, railways, dams, bridges, stadiums, airports, electrical grids and water systems.
St. Thomas School of Engineering is consistently ranked in the top 50 undergraduate engineering schools by the US News and World Report. In our hands-on program you’ll practice surveying, draft plans, visit construction job sites, try your hand at crushing concrete, and work with public entities to solve today’s sustainability infrastructure challenges. Right from the beginning of our comprehensive civil engineering degree program, Surveying, and Computer Assisted Design (CAD) courses will lay the foundation for your career. Attaining these skills will give you an advantage when applying for internships. Our program also provides you with the opportunity to learn from professors who have practical experience. They’ll help you see the big picture of infrastructure design, management and operations. Finally, in our Senior Design Clinic, you’ll work with a team of engineering students to solve a design challenge provided by one of our consulting companies and/or public agency partners.
Students earning a BS in Civil Engineering degree will complete the University of St. Thomas Core Curriculum requirements and Civil Engineering major requirements and allied requirements.
If you are interested in transferring to St. Thomas with an Engineering major, read this information for undergraduate Engineering transfer students.
Your faculty adviser will personalize a four-year plan with you based on your goals. This is one snapshot of how the plan of study for this major can look. Plans of study exist for students who wish to study abroad, double major or for ROTC.
View Civil Engineering Plans of Study Prior to 2022:
2021-2022, 2020-2021, 2019-2020, 2018-2019, 2017-2018
In their senior year, engineering teams take part in a two-semester capstone in which they use their knowledge from engineering and liberal arts courses to solve important problems. Multi-disciplinary teams are given the opportunity to demonstrate the designs they developed in partnership with industry sponsors, non-profits and community partners. From small start-ups to the largest companies in the Twin Cities, all find value in the unique solutions and our students shine while seeing their ideas come to fruition. Outcomes for students include networking with industry organizations and professionals, practical experience through the design cycle, the confidence that comes with real experience, and sometimes even job offers or their names included on patents.
The Design Clinic culminates with the Senior Design Show a great opportunity to showcase each team’s work to family, friends, peers and industry leaders.
Students earning a BS in Civil Engineering degree will complete the University of St. Thomas Core Curriculum requirements and Civil Engineering major requirements and allied requirements.
If you are interested in transferring to St. Thomas with an Engineering major, read this information for undergraduate Engineering transfer students.
Your faculty adviser will personalize a four-year plan with you based on your goals. This is one snapshot of how the plan of study for this major can look. Plans of study exist for students who wish to study abroad, double major or for ROTC.
View Civil Engineering Plans of Study Prior to 2022:
2021-2022, 2020-2021, 2019-2020, 2018-2019, 2017-2018
In their senior year, engineering teams take part in a two-semester capstone in which they use their knowledge from engineering and liberal arts courses to solve important problems. Multi-disciplinary teams are given the opportunity to demonstrate the designs they developed in partnership with industry sponsors, non-profits and community partners. From small start-ups to the largest companies in the Twin Cities, all find value in the unique solutions and our students shine while seeing their ideas come to fruition. Outcomes for students include networking with industry organizations and professionals, practical experience through the design cycle, the confidence that comes with real experience, and sometimes even job offers or their names included on patents.
The Design Clinic culminates with the Senior Design Show a great opportunity to showcase each team’s work to family, friends, peers and industry leaders.
A Gates scholar, Kao Soua Yang ’20 transferred to St. Thomas because of the small classes and close connections with faculty she can have here. She chose to major in civil engineering because she’s drawn to the “public” aspect of public works. “I am serving a purpose for the community,” she said. Over the past four years she’s been employed in Minnesota Department of Transportation’s SEEDS program for college students, where she’s been drafting and planning construction projects on corridors including Highways 94 and 35W in the Twin Cities.
Chloe Weber is a double major in civil engineering and general business management. Chloe has studied abroad both for a J-term Engineering course in Italy and the St. Thomas Business Semester in London. Her favorite class so far has been Engineering Graphics and Design.
The new Schoenecker Center will be the university's central home for STEAM education at St. Thomas, adding more than 40,000 square feet of engineering labs, classrooms, and collaboration spaces, nearly doubling the space in use today. Students will have an unique opportunity for hands-on experimental learning, partnerships with local industry, and tackling research benefiting the common good.
Become a Global Engineer
Combining engineering with the knowledge of German and intercultural competence through a year abroad, the German and Engineering dual degree program prepares graduates for meaningful careers in a globally minded and diverse world. The combination of foreign language and engineering studies lets students apply their language and culture skills to engineering and vice versa.
97% of first-year students receive merit scholarships that bring the average tuition cost down to $21,000 per year.
Several competitive scholarships are available for first-year students planning to major in engineering, science and mathematics. There are also undergraduate scholarships available for returning engineering students each academic year.
is the median annual pay for civil engineers in 2018.
Dr. Travis Welt and his research team focus on the fracture characteristics of structural welded connections. Drawing on his experience as an offshore structural engineer in the oil and gas industry, Dr. Welt aims to optimize weld qualification practices by better understanding how welding parameters affect weld performance using a custom, student-built robotic welding machine composed of a CNC machine and welder that act as a metallic 3D printer. Dr. Welt has also worked closely with a local steel mill on a project focused on bringing occupational safety in the steel industry into the twenty-first century in conjunction with a grant from the Association of Iron and Steel Technology (AIST).
Dr. Mohsen Tahmasebi Nasab and his students work on water resources engineering projects to describe, analyze, and simulate water cycle processes, known as hydrologic processes, and their interactions. They use a combination of computer programming, satellite images, and field data to develop and apply physically-based computer models to evaluate the impacts of climate change on hydrologic processes and water resources in cold-climate regions.
Dr. Lederle and her students are investigating the feasibility of using waste materials from iron mining in Northern Minnesota to reduce the need for mining new aggregate. The results could have an important, positive impact for the environment.
Dr. Deborah Besser, Chair of Civil Engineering, is helping civil engineering students get real-world experience promoting sustainability. Her students are working with cities and non-profit entities to adopt Envision, an infrastructure sustainability rating system for engineering, which is much like the LEED designation for architecture. Students are totaling Envision credits and educating the community on the important impact the Envision rating can have in Minnesota.
The University of St. Thomas bachelor's degree programs in Civil Engineering, Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering and Mechanical Engineering are accredited by the Engineering Accreditation Commission of ABET, the global accreditor of college and university programs in applied science, computing, engineering and engineering technology. ABET, 415 North Charles Street, Baltimore, MD 21201.
The University of St. Thomas is accredited by the Higher Learning Commission (HLC).
Graduates of the University of St. Thomas Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering program are expected to achieve one or more of the following:
Adopted: September 16, 2016. Revised: May 24, 2022.
Graduates of the program have:
It takes more than theory to transform an idea into useful technology for our society. St. Thomas engineers emerge with practical, hands-on experience, the power of strong communication skills and the broad perspective of a liberal arts education. Our rigorous engineering programs are designed to transform the young creative minds of our students into engineers who can truly make a difference in the world.
There is more to learn about St. Thomas; including our ranking as a Best Value School by U.S. News & World Report, the many classroom and extracurricular activities that will be part of your student experience and so much more. Schedule a visit to see our beautiful campus or start your application today.