Technical Electives for Mechanical Engineering

ME Tech Electives

As of March 10, 2025

Students should determine the area of ME that most interest them as early as possible in their undergraduate careers and consider elective courses whenever they qualify. To assist in that endeavor, the following themes are offered with potential Tech Electives to support your interests (including the upcoming semesters they will tentatively be offered):

  1. Advanced Fluids:
    • MIE 440 – Aerospace Fluid Mechanics: TBD
    • MIE 441 – Internal Combustion Engines: S26
    • MIE 442 – Propulsion Systems Performance, Analysis & Design: S26
  2. Biomedical:
    • MIE 458 – Connections in Medicine, Biology, & Engineering: S26
    • MIE 443 – Mechatronics: F25
    • MIE 687 – Practical Medical Device Design: S26 (requires instructor approval)
  3. Design:
    • MIE 414 – Industry-Sponsored Mechanical Design (prior to MIE 415): every fall
    • MIE 550 – Vehicle Automation: S26
    • MIE 556 – Augmented and Virtual Reality Design: F25
    • MIE 562 – Power Systems Design: S26
  4. Dynamic Systems and Control:
    • MIE 379 – Deterministic Operations Research: every fall
    • MIE 485 – Vibrations: TBD
    • MIE 510 – Feedback Control Systems: TBD
  5. Energy Conversion:
    • MIE 570 – Solar & Direct Energy Conversion: every spring
    • MIE 573 – Engineering Windpower Systems: every fall
    • MIE 649 – Coastal & Ocean Waves: S26 (requires instructor approval)
    • MIE 652 – Ocean Renewable Energy: S26 (requires instructor approval)
  6. Manufacturing:
    • MIE 422 – Statistical Quality Control: every fall
    • MIE 477 – Production Quality and Control: every spring
    • MIE 522 – Predictive Analytics & Statistical Learning: every spring
    • MIE 524 – Machine Learning for Dynamic Decision-Making: S26
    • MIE 553 – Industrial Automation: every fall
    • MIE 578 – Supply Chain Logistics: S26
    • MIE 690 STB – Industry 4.0 Tech & Systems: every spring (requires instructor approval)
  7. Materials (certificate program):
    • MIE 571/572 – Physical & Chemical Processing of Materials with Project
    • MIE 579 – Advanced Materials Engineering (or other 500-level advanced materials course)
    • ChE 573 – Materials Science & Engineering Project
    • ChE 590c – Mechanical Behavior of Materials
  8. Industrial Engineering (some of these courses may have pre-reqs that MEs will not have satisfied; please read the course description in SPIRE for enrollment requirements):
    • MIE 360 – Human Factors Engineering; every spring
    • MIE 373 – Intro to Simulation Methods; every spring
    • MIE 380 – Operations Research II; every fall
    • MIE 621 – Descriptive Analytics; every fall
    • MIE 522/622 – Predictive Analytics and Statistical Learning; every spring
    • MIE 623 – Prescriptive Analytics; every spring (requires instructor approval)

Note that these electives will be capped at 40 students and some are only offered every 2 years.  

Other technical courses in Engineering, Math, CS, Kinesiology, OIM, and science departments may be acceptable as Tech Electives; however, only one ME Technical Elective can be satisfied with a non-MIE course; e-mail your student number, major, and a course description to the Chief Undergraduate Advisor (CUA), Dr. Schliemann , for approval. Examples of previously approved non-MIE technical electives are:  Building & Construction Technology 540; Chemical Engineering 555, 589; Civil & Environmental Engineering 310, 331, 430/530, 462; CICS 210; Computer Science 335, 403; Electrical & Computer Engineering 241, 331; Kinesiology 460, 530; and Math 425, 456, 545, 551, 552. Note that students may take 600-level graduate courses only with e-mail permission of the instructor. Please message the instructor after your enrollment appointment opens in SPIRE. You can then forward the approval message to Kevin Romani, who will enroll you into the class directly. 

Many of these courses will not automatically go to a technical elective spot in your ARR. Know that any course listed above is an approved technical elective. If the course is not where it is supposed to be in your ARR, please message Kevin Romani, who will make the ARR adjustment for you. If it is a course that was taken in a previous semester, he will make the change immediately. For any classes in progress, please wait to request the ARR adjustment with Kevin until after the add/drop period ends.   

 

MIE Elective

ME students can take one of the following courses to satisfy their MIE Elective requirement: Computer Science 119, CICS 110, or ECE 122 (if not used to satisfy MIE 124); Building & Construction Technology 550; Chemistry 112; Engineering Management Minor (EMM) courses; Kinesiology 236, 430; Math 235; and MIE 381, 398C, 398T and MSEM courses MSEM courses (645, 646, 664, 670, 671, etc.). Other technical courses in Engineering, Math, CS, Kinesiology, OIM, and science departments may be acceptable as the MIE Elective; e-mail your student number, major, and a course description to the CUA for approval.