Scholarships at St. Thomas
97% of first-year students receive merit scholarships that bring the average tuition cost down to $21,000 per year.
BS in Civil Engineering
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.
Why Study Civil Engineering at St. Thomas?
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.
Ask the Admissions Office for a Visit with Engineering.
We encourage you to request an in-person or virtual visit with our Dean, Dr. Don Weinkauf and/or one of our engineering faculty to help answer your questions, get to know us better, and see why St. Thomas is a great place to study engineering.
Program Overview
Course Requirements
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.
Four-Year Plan
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
Degrees Awarded
- Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering (accredited by the Engineering Accreditation Commission of ABET)
Senior Design Clinic
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.
Course Requirements
Course Requirements
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.
Four-Year Plan
Four-Year Plan
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
Degrees Awarded
Degrees Awarded
- Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering (accredited by the Engineering Accreditation Commission of ABET)
Senior Design Clinic
Senior Design Clinic
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.
Learning Through Experience
Kao Soua Yang ’20
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 '20
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.
New STEAM Labs & Classrooms
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
Dual Degree in German and Engineering
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.
Career Paths
- City or County engineer
- Water resources engineer
- Construction engineer
- Transportation engineer
- Geotechnical engineer
- Environmental engineer
- Structural engineer
- Materials engineer
Affordability and Outcomes
Scholarships for Engineering Students
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.
$86K
is the median annual pay for civil engineers in 2018.
Faculty With Real-World Experience
Dr. Travis Welt, Assistant Professor
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, Assistant Professor
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. Rita Lederle, Assistant Professor
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, Director, Center for Engineering Education; and Chair, Civil Engineering
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.
Quick Facts
100%
of senior Civil Engineering students graduate with a job or enter graduate school
100%
of senior civil engineering students graduate with a technical internship
100%
of engineering students solve an engineering problem or design plans and specifications for industry as a part of the Senior Design Clinic
The St. Thomas Experience
Every engineering major completes this two-semester course senior year. You’ll be challenged to solve a real-world industry problem or design challenge with a team of engineering students.
Service Learning with Local Public Agencies and Non-Profit Partners:
Civil engineering courses solve real world challenges by partnering with local public and non-profit partners. For example, Freshman students worked with MnDOT on concept drawings for rest stop and historical marker designs which highlight the MN Glacial Woman. Sophomore students in collaborated with a Non-Profit Developer to assess sustainability credits for an ecovillage located adjacent to new light rail. And the Senior students joined the St. Thomas Facilities group on development of portions of the bike master plan.
St. Thomas civil engineering students can obtain summer internships after their Freshman year. These summer experiences provide an early insight into the right fit for you after graduation. And these experiences give you an advantage with your first post-graduation position.
Meet the Engineers: A Reverse Career Fair
Meet the Engineers is the School of Engineering’s Reverse Career Fair and it is held every fall. St. Thomas engineering students interested in full-time employment and internships represent themselves with a poster board and standby as prospective employers, many of whom are engineering alumni, walk and talk with students about their particular goals, interests and talents.
Clubs
The School of Engineering has many student clubs to choose from including:
- American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE)
- American Public Works Association (APWA)
- Engineers for a Sustainable World
- Society of Women Engineers
- Society of American Military Engineers
- Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers
Roman Structures, Engineering and Society
In this study abroad course students travel throughout Italy to discover the origins and evolution of engineering and design, from Roman aqueducts to cutting-edge, contemporary Italian infrastructure.
Accreditation
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:
- Create with Engineering Skills: Use civil, design, materials, fluids, hydraulic, hydrologic, structural, geotechnical, transportation, construction, surveying and environmental principles to create systems, infrastructure, structures, and services that meet needs of people, improve the quality of their lives, and use resources wisely in pursuit of the common good.
- Grow in a Learning Profession: Increase personal knowledge and skill through graduate or professional study, appropriate certifications, and work assignments.
- Contribute through Citizenship: Contribute time, knowledge, and skills to the profession, community, and the world.
- Lead through One's Work: Serve as a team member or team leader, demonstrating ethical behavior, professional responsibility, and a commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion.
Adopted: September 16, 2016. Revised: May 24, 2022.
Graduates of the program have:
- An ability to identify, formulate, and solve complex engineering problems by applying principles of engineering, science, and mathematics.
- An ability to apply engineering design to produce solutions that meet specified needs with consideration of public health, safety, and welfare, as well as global, cultural, social, environmental, and economic factors.
- An ability to communicate effectively with a range of audiences.
- An ability to recognize ethical and professional responsibilities in engineering situations and make informed judgments, which must consider the impact of engineering solutions in global, economic, environmental, and societal contexts.
- An ability to function effectively on a team whose members together provide leadership, create a collaborative and inclusive environment, establish goals, plan tasks, and meet objectives.
- An ability to develop and conduct appropriate experimentation, analyze and interpret data, and use engineering judgment to draw conclusions.
- An ability to acquire and apply new knowledge as needed, using appropriate learning strategies.
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.
Dr. Don Weinkauf, dean of the School of Engineering
Take the Next Step
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.