Environmental Engineering
Download as PDF
Program Type
Program Format
Overview
The Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering's (CEE) undergraduate programs offer opportunities for rigorous academic learning, fellowship, hands-on experience, and leadership. Classes are relatively small, so students get to know both the faculty and fellow students.
The program in Environmental Engineering, provides students with a strong fundamental background in engineering science, design, and practice. Students learn to solve societal problems—in California, the United States, and the world—such as:
Protecting resources
Mitigating hazards
Sustainability and resilience
Environmental justice
Undergraduates at Berkeley have opportunities for professional interactions and community service. CEE has active student chapters of the American Society of Civil Engineers and the national honor society of Chi Epsilon as well as nine competition teams.
Areas of Emphasis
The curriculum for the major requires students to explore all of the subfields of environmental engineering, including water quality engineering, air quality engineering, hydrology, and geoenvironmental engineering. Majors are additionally trained in two critical emergent issues that touch on all aspects of environmental engineering: environmental justice and climate change. Students complete a capstone course in which they apply their environmental engineering training to real-world design problems. Students who would like to see the differences between majors in Environmental Engineering, Environmental Engineering Science, and Civil Engineering, should refer to this chart.
Accreditation
The BS program in Environmental Engineering will be seeking its initial ABET accreditation in Fall 2028.
Admission to the Major
Prospective undergraduates to the College of Engineering will apply for admission to a specific program in the college. For further information, see the College of Engineering's website.
Students in the College of Engineering who are interested in changing their major to Environmental Engineering should refer to this page.
Admission to Engineering via a Change of College application for current UC Berkeley students is highly unlikely and very competitive as there are few (if any) spaces that open in the college each year to students admitted to other colleges at UC Berkeley. For further information regarding a Change of College to Engineering, see the college's website.