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Checksheets and Advising Guides

Checksheets and Advising Guides are available to students to create their own plans and allow for depth and breadth of study in a variety of areas. Students will be able to create their own plan of study by strategically selecting courses of interest. Checksheets for all Virginia Tech degree programs can be found on the University Registrar’s webpage at www.registrar.vt.edu. Students on catalog year 2024-2025 and later can find their major requirements listed on their ‘Undergraduate Course Catalog’.

Checksheets and Advising Guides for BSCE degree:

Design Integration

The design experience that the civil and environmental engineering student receives at Virginia Tech is one that is varied and at the same time quite complete. What makes it varied is the wide selection of “Design Project” courses that are available and from which the student must choose at least one. Completeness comes from the elements of design that are taught in the vast majority of the “Fundamentals” courses that span the seven program areas of the department.  This completeness is supplemented by the large amount of design that is contained in the “Advanced” elective courses. These courses build on all or parts of the freshman – sophomore core curriculum that all civil and environmental engineering students must complete.

Civil and Environmental Engineering students are able to spread their coursework across the program areas (Construction, Environmental, Geotechnical, Land Development, Materials, Structures, Transportation Infrastructure, and Water Resources) or have their coursework emphasize one or two of these areas. For example, one combination would be to put emphasis in the Geotechnical and Construction Engineering areas. The student might take the design project course “Geotechnics for Land Development” along with a second design project course in Construction, such as “Estimating, Production and Cost Engineering.”  These and the other design project courses emphasize the “teamwork experience” as the project for the course is developed. The student may also integrate their design course with electives from other program areas that have design elements in them although the team design project is not present.

A similar scenario can be drawn for the student who would prefer to obtain a broader background in the civil and environmental engineering discipline. Of course, some thought and advice from faculty will help the student in selecting design project courses most suited to their interests.  It should be noted that there is no restriction on the maximum number of design project or civil and environmental engineering electives which a student may enroll in during their degree program.

Thus, true integration of the components of the curriculum is obtained from the core courses in the early years to the fundamental courses in each program area and into the advanced electives and design project courses.  Design is present in varying ways in all of these components.

Important Notes

  • The department name is Civil & Environmental Engineering.
  • All students will earn a Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering (BSCE) degree.
  • The University Pathways to General Education requirements are determined based upon the date a student enters Virginia Tech. More information about the Pathways to General Education is available here: Pathways General Education | Pathways General Education | Virginia Tech (vt.edu)