FAQs for Prospective Undergraduate Students

In short, the design, construction and maintenance of the man-made and natural environments.

Water quality and public health, disaster response and recovery, sustainability, energy efficiency and energy production, infrastructure systems (water and sewer, roads and bridges, telecommunications, power), soil and rocks, ecology, air quality, pollution, wireless sensing technology, origami engineering, waste management, and much, much more.

We are problem solvers, innovators, entrepreneurs, and global leaders. Our work readies the modern world for a growing, aging human population and makes life better in our communities. Many of our graduates work as engineers; many others do not. They’re CEOs and lawyers, doctors and bankers, entrepreneurs and consultants.

Our graduates find careers all over the world at places like Simpson Gumpertz & Heger, Shell, ExxonMobil, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Georgia Power/Southern Co., GE, Kimley-Horn and Associates, Arcadis, Atkins, Schlumberger, Skanska, Bechtel Corp., and government agencies.

We have alumni working for Boeing, NASA, Microsoft, Boston Consulting Group, Emory Healthcare, Johnson & Johnson, Delta Airlines, Norfolk Southern, The Coca-Cola Company, AT&T, Morgan Stanley, Bank of America and Raytheon.

We have lots of others who start their own firms in engineering, technology, consulting. We even count restaurateurs among our alums.

Our professors are among the highest-rated teachers at Georgia Tech, according to course-evaluation surveys from our students. Their average effectiveness score is about 4.5 on 5.0 scale (campus wide, the average is 4.0 or a little lower).

Something else to consider: our student-faculty ratio is about 20:1, pretty typical across campus and lower than most other schools in the College of Engineering.

Many bachelor’s degree students work with our world-renowned faculty members on research that’s advancing science and solving problems in the United States and around the globe. You can find more details about the ongoing research in CEEatGT here or on our faculty profile pages.

In CEE, we offer a minor in Global Engineering Leadership. The course work develops leadership skills, cultural competency and awareness of global grand challenges in engineering. The idea is to prepare you to be a world-class engineer as well as a global citizen who's equipped to help create solutions to those challenges.

Our students also pursue minors in business, computer science, foreign languages (Spanish, French and German, especially), even other engineering disciplines. Earth and Atmospheric Sciences is especially popular with our environmental engineering majors. And Georgia Tech offers minors in everything from architectural history to music to psychology.

Many of our students finish their undergraduate degrees in four or five years. And if you want to stay just one more year, you can think about our BS/MS program and get your master’s too.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics forecasts the demand for civil and environmental engineers will grow 10 percent through 2026. That’s thanks to increased urbanization, an aging population, growing environmental concerns, rapid changes in technology and increased globalization, among other trends. Our nation's leaders also have signaled more spending on our crumbling infrastructure in the coming years, which is going to mean lots of work for civil and environmental engineers.

About 90 percent of our graduates land jobs immediately after graduation, and many of them secure positions even before they finish their degree. And that doesn’t account for students who stick around for grad school.

You can study abroad anywhere you like, and we'll help you pay for it. We have a $4 million endowment called the Joe S. Mundy Global Learning Endowment specifically earmarked for undergraduate international learning experiences. We’ve sent about 300 students to 60 countries with the fund. Some students use it to study at Georgia Tech-Lorraine in France; to participate in Tech’s Pacific Program in Australia, New Zealand and Fiji; or to travel for field work with one of our faculty members. If you can find the study abroad opportunity, you can apply for Mundy funds to help pay for it.

We think doing a co-op or internship is a great way to expand your education (and make some money along the way). It typically takes a little longer to graduate if you want to co-op, because you alternate semesters as a full-time student and a full-time employee. But we hear from students all the time who have jobs lined up after they graduate because of their co-op work or because they interned with a company and proved their abilities. Georgia Tech works with more than 1,000 employers across the country and overseas to place our co-op students. Students apply to the co-op program as early as their first semester as a freshman through the Georgia Tech Center for Career Discovery and Development.

Our classes are spread out across half a dozen buildings on campus, but the heartbeat of CEEatGT is the Mason Building.

Very favorably. U.S. News and World Report consistently ranks our undergraduate programs among the top three in the nation.

While we’re one of the smaller schools in the Georgia Tech College of Engineering, we’re among the largest civil and environmental engineering programs in the country.

Take your pick, depending on your interest. We have about a dozen civil and environmental engineering related student organizations. Georgia Tech overall boasts 400-some student groups, 43 sports clubs and more than 50 Greek organizations.

Undergrads can contact our Undergraduate Student Services Office to schedule a time to talk to one of our advisers.

Grad students can check out the Graduate FAQ page or contact our Graduate Student Services Office.