Beyond the Classroom The Department of Civil Engineering and Geological Sciences offers a number of exciting opportunities outside the classroom. These include:
- Engineering competitions (such as the concrete canoe race shown above)
- Extraordinary field trips
- Research experiences at Notre Dame
- National and international research opportunities involving field work
- Challenges and Innovation seminar series
These opportunities are offered by the Department and are in addition to the opportunities for study abroad through the University's International Studies Program and opportunities for service through the University's Center for Social Concerns. As a result, your undergraduate education in Civil Engineering and Geological Sciences can include not only classroom learning, but multiple opportunities to work individually or with your fellow students outside the classroom, outside the campus environment, and outside the borders of the United States!
Signature Opportunities
Competitions
Our students are involved in a number of educational competitions
that challenge them to apply their classroom principals through fun and challenging competitions.
Each year, for example, the students participate in the ASCE
concrete canoe competition in which
they have to construct and then compete in a canoe whose outer shell is comprised of
special concrete mixtures designed to provide strength at minimum weight. Our students also
compete in the ASCE steel bridge competition
whereby they are required to design, build and test a
steel bridge to meet strength, weight, and stability criteria imposed by the competition sponsors. Finally, our
students have been very successful in such academic competitions as the Metcalf & Eddy Design Competition where
they compete with other engineering programs in design of real-world solutions to problems in water supply
and treatment.
Field Trips
For the past several years, the Department has sponsored extended field
trips for both the Civil Engineering majors and the Environmental Science majors. The
Civil Engineering
field trips have included inspection of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans and visit to
major infrastructure projects in New York. The Environmental Geosciences field trip has focused
on a number of significant geologic locations in the Southwestern United States, including recent trips
to the Nevada Test Site and several national parks where geologic processes are on natural display.
Undergraduate Research at Notre Dame
Many of our undergraduates engage in research collaborations with faculty
and graduate students in our department. These opportunities allow our undergraduates to pursue
research in various aspects of biochemical processes in the environment,
numerical modeling of fluid
flows with environmental applications, and
structural dynamics and analysis. Such
research allows our students to obtain advanced, hands-on experiences at the cutting edge of science
and engineering.
Opportunities exist to share these research
findings in campus forums through the
Center for Undergraduate
Scholarly Engagement and even at national and international conferences.
National and International Field Research and Service Opportunities
Undergraduate research also commonly extends
into the field both in the United States and internationally. This might include, for example, field
work in the southeastern coast of the U.S. looking at coastal dynamics,
surveying tsunami impacts
on developing countries, or living in village in
Africa (Benin, West Africa) to work with local populations on water development and protection.
Undergraduate students also participate annually in a service-oriented design
project called ND Seed
designing, funding, and constructing footbridges for communities in the
developing world lacking safe passage from their villages.
Challenges and Innovation Seminar Series
This unique seminar series brings international leaders from industry, academia, and other related fields to discuss major projects and accomplishments by engineers and geoscientists. These seminars are directed to our undergraduate students and those students who formally register for the series receive both course credit and opportunities to meet in small groups with the invited speakers.