Physics
Department

Interested in a career in engineering?

St. Mary’s College of Maryland does not offer an engineering degree or engineering courses.  However, the Physics Department does offer several ways to prepare for an engineering career.

• A physics major with a handful of additional courses qualifies a graduate for many engineering jobs with the US government. According to the Office of Personnel Management, a physics graduate seeking a government engineering position should also have taken five of the following seven courses: (a) statics, dynamics; (b) strength of materials (stress-strain relationships); (c) fluid mechanics, hydraulics; (d) thermodynamics; (e) electrical fields and circuits; (f) nature and properties of materials (relating particle and aggregate structure to properties); and (g) any other comparable area of fundamental engineering science or physics, such as optics, heat transfer, soil mechanics, or electronics. Some of these courses are already part of the SMCM physics major. Others are electives offered at SMCM. The remainder would have to be taken at another institution, e.g. over the summer.
• A physics major – particularly with an applied physics concentration – provides preparation for graduate programs in engineering.  Appropriate choice of electives at St. Mary’s, plus perhaps a small number of additional courses at another institution, will provide the best preparation.
• In the Dual Degree Program, St. Mary’s partners with the A. James Clark School of Engineering at the University of Maryland to award the student a BA in physics from St. Mary’s and a BS in an engineering field from the University of Maryland.  Typically, students study three years at St. Mary’s and two years at the University of Maryland.