Michigan Tech has a common first-year engineering program. Every engineering student at Michigan Tech takes the same foundational courses in this program: math, engineering, chemistry, physics, composition, and global issues. A student’s mathematics placement is determined by the Mathematics Department. Based on math placement, there are two course pathways through first-year engineering, as shown in Figure 1. Students who are calculus-ready (i.e., they are placed into Calc I – MA1160 or MA1161 – or higher) upon enrollment have a two-semester sequence consisting of ENG1101 – Engineering Analysis and Problem Solving and ENG1102 – Engineering Modeling and Design. Students who are pre-calculus-ready (i.e., they are placed into MA1032 – PreCalculus) upon enrollment have a three-semester sequence consisting of ENG1001 – Engineering Problem Solving, ENG1100 – Engineering Analysis, and ENG1102 – Engineering Modeling and Design. Students place into MA1030 will start the two semester sequence when they begin Calculus I (MA1160).
