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Paths to Engineering

A Program As Unique As You Are

Whether your interest is engineering is new or a long-standing goal, the programs at Illinois Wesleyan can amplify your development and expand your interests and opportunities. Our students praise the extensive exploration they participate in, wide variety of project opportunities, and key connections they're able to make between different areas of engineering. The foundation you will develop at Illinois Wesleyan allows you to outperform students who directly enter traditional Engineering programs and makes you more adaptable as you encounter new technology and emerging opportunities. Our student-faculty ratio and our core campus identity both ensure that you get direct faculty mentoring and help to continue finding new opportunities to explore.

 

Be Breakthrough

Our primary focus is opening students' minds and facilitating breakthrough moments, all while preparing them for meaningful careers in diverse fields. Our program offers a nationleading curriculum of “tech-oriented” instructional laboratories, allowing our students to develop an ever stronger background with a wide range of technologies and techniques and the experiences of troubleshooting involved in improving experimental designs. Alumni repeatedly tell us that the intellectual discipline and technical/research skills they develop within our program put them at an advantage as they move onward and upward.

 

Dr. Bruno deHarak headshot

"Close interactions, both in classrooms and teaching laboratories, between our students and professors, and numerous opportunities for students to collaborate with faculty on research/ development projects, enable our students to develop a strong foundation in the fundamentals such that they routinely excel during their time at the engineering institutions with which we are affiliated.”

Bruno deHarak, Ph.D. Emeritus Professor of Physics

 

5 paths

Illinois Wesleyan University offers 5 unique pathways for students who wish to enter the engineering profession. 

  1. Graduate from IWU with a 4-year degree and go directly into an engineering job.
  2. 3-2 Program.
    • At the end of your 3rd year at IWU, enter into our 3-2 program for an additional 2 years and either get a dual degree or specialization at one of our partner schools, or a school of your choosing.
    • This is not a transfer. With the 3-2 program, you will have two bachelor's degrees: one from IWU and one from the other school you attend.
    • We have special affiliations with Case Western Reserve (Cleveland), Washington University (St. Louis), Columbia University (New York City) which means you are virtually assured dual-degree admission if you meet all requirements for the engineering curriculum at the affiliated school.
  3. 3-3 Program.
    • Attend IWU for 3 years, then attend one of our partner schools, or a school of your choosing, for 3 more years. At the end of the 6 years, you'll have earned 2 bachelor's degrees (one from IWU and one from the other school you attend), as well as a master's degree from the other institution.
    • Students who participate in Washington University's 3-3 Engineering Program will enroll directly into an engineering master's program and an undergraduate engineering program at WashU after their 3 years at IWU.
  4. Graduate from IWU with a 4-year degree and go directly into an engineering Master’s program.
  5. Get your Ph.D.

 

Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)

IEEE's Constitution defines the purposes of the organization as "scientific and educational, directed toward the advancement of the theory and practice of Electrical, Electronics, Communications and Computer Engineering, as well as Computer Science, the allied branches of engineering and the related arts and sciences."

International Society for Optics and Photonics (SPIE)

SPIE is interested in promoting the study of optics and photonics across campus. At meetings we do demos, perform experiments, bring in speakers, etc.

Society of Physics Students

The IWU chapter of the Society of Physics Students gives students an opportunity to get to know each other and continuing to broaden and deepen our love of physics. We play games, host movie nights, and participate in multiple projects - for research and just for fun!

Chem Club

The Chemistry Club aims to educate and excite students, faculty, and community members through activities such as demonstrations, faculty presentations, student research presentations, and community outreach. You also have the opportunity to take the course work necessary for certification by the American Chemical Society.

Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)

ACM is an international organization with the purpose of advancing the sciences, arts, and general understanding of information processing including, but not restricted to the study, design, development, construction, and application of modern machinery, computing techniques and appropriate languages for general information processing, for scientific computation, for the recognition, storage, retrieval, and processing of all data of all kinds, and for the automatic control and simulation of processes.

contact

Gabe Spalding - B. Charles and Joyce Eichhorn Ames Professor of Physics

Department - Physics

(309) 556-3004