University Catalog

During their first three to five years after graduation, Aerospace Engineering Sciences graduates will have:

• established themselves in distinguished professional careers or received a graduate degree;
• demonstrated leadership, management, or entrepreneurial skills; and
• played key roles in the design of complex aerospace systems.

Students completing the undergraduate degree in aerospace engineering will be knowledgeable in the following areas:

• the professional context of the practice of aerospace engineering and expectations of new graduates in aerospace engineering organizations, including an awareness of ethics issues, economics, and the business environment;
• the history of aerospace engineering, providing a perspective on current events;
• aerospace engineering as a highly multidisciplinary endeavor, requiring a systems perspective to integrate technologies and manage complexity; and
• major principles and scientific methods underlying the technologies comprising aerospace vehicles and systems.

In addition, students will have developed the following general skills and abilities:

• written, oral, and graphical communication skills;
• an ability to quantitatively estimate, model, analyze, and compute;
• an ability to define and conduct experiments using modern laboratory instruments, and to interpret experimental results;
• an ability to seek out and gather information, enabling independent and lifelong learning;
• interpersonal and organizational skills that enable individuals to work effectively in teams;
• an ability to identify needs, requirements, and constraints, and to design appropriate engineering solutions;
• an ability to formulate technical problems clearly, and to correctly apply appropriate methods and procedures for their solution; and
• an ability to program computers, and skills in the use of modern engineering analysis, simulation software, and operating systems.

The undergraduate curriculum, Aerospace Curriculum 2000, is designed to prepare students to advance to a distinguished professional career in the aerospace industry or for graduate school, consistent with our stated Program Educational Objectives. In particular, this involves providing students with an interdisciplinary systems perspective of aerospace engineering. The curriculum accomplishes these goals by:

• providing a strong basis in mathematics, science, and engineering fundamentals;
• extending these fundamentals to advanced topics in aerospace engineering;
• complementing the engineering education with sufficient exposure to the humanities and social sciences; and
• beginning and ending in major design experiences that stress an interdisciplinary systems perspective.

AES students are also encouraged to consider a technical minor or double major in electrical engineering, computer science, applied math, engineering physics, astrophysical and planetary sciences, or atmospheric and oceanic sciences. In most cases, the junior- and senior-level courses required for the above-mentioned minors can be applied to the professional area elective requirements.

For students having sufficient ability and interest, planning for graduate study should begin by the start of the junior year. Such a plan should consider the foreign language requirements of appropriate graduate schools and an advanced mathematics program. Students who wish to combine the business and aerospace engineering sciences curricula are advised to consider obtaining the BS degree in aerospace and a master's degree in business rather than a combined BS degree. Space in the undergraduate aerospace engineering program is limited; some restrictions may apply.

Bioengineering Option/Premedical Curriculum +

Curriculum for BS, Aerospace Engineering Sciences +

Humanities and Social Science Electives +

Professional Area Electives +

Prerequisites and Passing Grades +

The Department of Aerospace Engineering Science at the University of Colorado is one of the top aerospace engineering departments in the nation with annual research expenditures that exceed $10 million. Aerospace engineers work on Earth and in space not only to extend frontiers but also to understand more fully and to preserve our terrestrial environment. Few fields offer more exciting and diverse careers: becoming an astronaut (15 graduates to date have become astronauts), designing the next generation of aircraft and spacecraft, monitoring our global habitat via remote sensing from space, in situ sensing with unmanned vehicles, and helping to develop environmentally clean energy and transportation systems.

Aerospace graduate students often formulate degree plans on the basis of the student's interests and needs. Portions of the program are designed to promote the student's engineering and professional development. Graduate students are admitted into a specific focus area that provides research advising, financial support, and sets specialized admission and program requirements and recommendations for course work within and outside the department. The five focus areas are:

• Astrodynamics and Satellite Navigation Systems
• Bioastronautics
• Remote Sensing, Earth and Space Science
• Vehicle Systems, including Aerodynamics, Systems and Control
• Structural and Material Systems

Each focus area has defined the required characteristics of its successful graduates at the MS and PhD level, and defined the required and elective courses that support its educational program.

Aerospace-related research centers in the college include the Colorado Center for Astrodynamics Research, the Center for Aerospace Structures, the Research and Engineering Center for Unmanned Vehicles, and Bioserve Space Technologies (a NASA Center for the Commercial Development of Space). Other research centers within the university that are involved in space-related research activities are the Center for the Study of Earth from Space, the Center for Astrophysics and Space Astronomy, the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics, JILA, and the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences.

Requirements for Advanced Degrees +

Master of Science Degree +

Master of Engineering Degree +

PhD Degree +