Technical Electives

Technical Electives are the final phase of undergraduate education in Mechanical Engineering. This is a student’s opportunity to decide where and how they want to dive deeper into mechanical engineering content. The objectives of the technical electives are to synthesize the knowledge and skills acquired in the required ME courses and to broaden the student’s knowledge in other related technical areas.

Students should be familiar with the following requirements to complete their degree.

Technical Elective Requirements

  1. Students must complete 12 credit hours of technical elective courses.
  2. All technical electives must be:
    1. Upper division (3000-5999) courses;
    2. Taken for a letter grade (except ME EN 5910 and ME EN 5930 which are graded on a Credit/No Credit basis);
    3. Satisfactorily completed with a C or higher. A B or higher is required to count towards an emphasis.
  3. At least 6 of the 12 technical elective credits must be completed with lecture-based 5000-level courses within the Mechanical Engineering department. This category includes all 5000-level ME EN courses except ME EN 5910, ME EN 5930, and ME EN 5950.
    1. For students who complete a Data Science emphasis or Computer Science minor, this requirement is waived. Instead all 12 technical elective credits must be from the list of approved technical electives outside of Mechanical Engineering. Students must complete the Data Science emphasis or Computer Science minor in order to qualify for this exception.
  4. Each of the following courses are are capped at 3 credit hours each: ME EN 4999, ME EN 5910, ME EN 5930, ME EN 5950, HINKLY 49xx).
    1. No more than 3 total credit hours combined from ME EN 5910 and HINKLY 49xx can be counted towards the technical electives requirement.
  5. No more than 6 credits total may be taken from the following course numbers: ME EN 4999, ME EN 5910, ME EN 5930, ME EN 5950, and the list of approved outside of ME technical electives.

We offer a wide range of technical electives to support student and industry interests. You can find more information about emphasis areas, technical electives in the department, and other approved technical electives below.