First-Year Engineering Program

The brightest, most talented engineers are devoting themselves to tackling immense global challenges. As a First-Year Engineering (FYE) student, you get to join them!

The National Academy of Engineering identified 14 “Grand Challenges for Engineering in the 21st Century”—opportunities to  increase humanity’s sustainability, health, security and joy of living. Themes include making solar energy economical, enhancing virtual reality, reverse-engineering the brain, securing cyberspace, providing access to clean water and more!

These ambitious goals demand that engineers roll up their sleeves and get to work, which is why we put those aspirations front and center during your first year as an engineering student. We have designed the FYE program to help you discover your passion. We want you to get your hands dirty and make stuff that might someday lead to a breakthrough.

Why wait until you’re taking upper-level classes to figure out what interests you? Through real engineering classes taught by top faculty and exposure to engineering’s most significant challenges, the FYE program gets you into the game from day one.

• Take engineering classes from your first day as a student. Previously first-year students took calculus, physics, chemistry and had to wait until sophomore year to dive in. With FYE, you’re already immersed in engineering.
• Studies have demonstrated that students in FYE programs perform better in their upper-level classes and are more likely to graduate with an engineering or computer science degree.
• Hands-on Engineering Challenges – you’ll complete a working design project by the end of the year.
• FYE courses are taught by dedicated engineering faculty with a range of professional backgrounds.  What’s more, you get increased attention from faculty owing to the highly-interactive nature of FYE classes.
• You get to learn about each major in the college. Sure, you might want to be a civil engineer, but you may discover another field of engineering that opens up a whole new world. Learning about other disciplines will enable you to collaborate with students in other majors.
• If you transfer from another institution, the FYE program gives you a community of your own within the college. That will help you adjust swiftly to life at UK!