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From the department chair

I’d like to take this opportunity to welcome you to the Department of Civil Engineering and to provide some background information about the field of civil engineering that you won’t find elsewhere on this site. Also, I’d like to make a few personal observations about our Department here at Johns Hopkins.

Starting about 200 years ago, engineering education in this country was available only to military engineers, who were educated at the United States Military Academy at West Point. Civil(ian) engineering was the first non-military engineering discipline; formal schools of civil engineering began to emerge in the U.S. in the mid-1800s.

Today, civil engineering is a very broad field--broader than the other engineering disciplines. Civil engineers build the civil infrastructure--buildings, bridges, airports, tunnels, roads, etc. They are also concerned with the foundations of these structures, and this requires knowledge of the mechanics of the soil beneath them. Civil engineers also solve problems related to water supply and waste treatment and the design and construction of ports and harbors.

Civil Engineering graduates have a wide variety of professional options available to them. Some enter the practice of civil engineering, working for engineering firms or starting their own businesses; others work for city, state, or county governmental organizations, becoming city, state, or county engineers. Still others pursue Masters or Ph.D. degrees, which lead either to academic positions or higher level jobs within the private sector. Ultimately, an engineering degree provides a rigorous exposure to logical thinking and the design process. This foundation has also proven useful to our graduates who elect professional education in law, medicine, and business.

Johns Hopkins University:

I’ve been impressed by several characteristics of the University and the Department. First, Johns Hopkins is a world-renowned educational institution. This is evident in the international reputation of its faculty and in the national rankings of many of its schools and departments. Those of us associated with the institution are proud of this reputation and are reminded of each time the national news media refer to Johns Hopkins faculty for their achievements.

Second, Civil Engineering at Hopkins is a small program with a small number of students. The student/faculty ratio is 10:1, which means that our students and faculty know one another personally. Class size in our civil engineering courses rarely exceeds 15 students and some are far less. This provides a highly personal educational experience. Yet our students have numerous opportunities to explore a wide range of civil engineering topics--from structural, geotechnical and environmental engineering, to coastal and ocean engineering.

Finally, the quality of the faculty here is exceptional in both teaching and research. All of our faculty teach undergraduate courses--last year, two of them won teaching awards for their undergraduate courses--and all of our faculty conduct state-of-the-art research with undergraduate and graduate students.

If you are a prospective undergraduate student

Choosing a college is an important undertaking--your whole life will be influenced by the choices that you make now. The education that you receive during the four years of college and the friends that you make will have an impact on your entire future. Johns Hopkins University offers first-rate professors in all aspects of your education--engineering is enriched by equal depth in the faculty of the natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities and one of the best music conservatories in the country.

Our undergraduate engineering program has been designed to provide a firm foundation for a wide breadth of activities in modern civil engineering. Some flexibility is built into the curriculum so that students can pursue particular interests such as structural or geotechnical analysis and design, environmental and water resource engineering, coastal and ocean engineering, and economics and systems analysis. Our program is accredited by ABET, the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology. A five-year BS-MS honors program (50% tuition waiver in fifth year) is available for qualified applicants, as are dual major options. A minor in business--the largest minor at Hopkins--is also offered through the engineering school.

Graduate students

The civil engineering graduate program at Hopkins is focused around four thrust areas: structural engineering and mechanics, geotechnical engineering and geomechanics, probabilistic methods and hazard management, and coastal/ocean engineering. Recent developments and applications in engineering mechanics lie at the core of the program. As described in our catalog: "The graduate civil engineering program is designed to instill in the student the fundamental theoretical concepts of mechanics as well as knowledge of modern structural and geotechnical engineering, a practical appreciation of the challenges of creative engineering design, and a sense of responsibility for professional service." The civil engineering program also integrates new concepts from research into classroom and laboratory study, and strives to develop an enthusiasm on the part of the student for independent creative activities that lead to new knowledge in problem areas of national importance.

In our program, no application fee is required. Most incoming students are fully supported on School or Department fellowships, and for subsequent years, virtually all students are fully supported on research grants through their faculty advisers. Some of our current graduate students have been awarded highly desirable and competitive NSF Graduate Fellowships.

Finally:

We have an energetic and student-friendly environment here at Johns Hopkins. We dedicate ourselves to teaching that is informed by the latest research. We hope you will join us in learning and creating knowledge to share with the rest of the world!

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