Timothy Peck March 8, 2023 4 College Lists

Top Liberal Arts Colleges With Engineering Programs

What’s Covered:

• What Is a Liberal Arts Education?
• How Liberal Arts Education Differs From Professional Education
• Benefits of Getting an Engineering Degree From a Liberal Arts College
• Liberal Arts Colleges With 3-2 or 2-1-1-1 Engineering Programs
• Liberal Arts Colleges With Engineering Majors

While many people might not associate liberal arts colleges with engineering, these schools can create an ideal environment for prospective engineering students. Liberal arts colleges offer smaller classes and supportive environments while encouraging students to build a diverse set of skills. If you’re considering a liberal arts college but want to study engineering, here’s what you need to know.

What Is a Liberal Arts Education?

Rather than teaching a specific set of domain-specific content, a liberal arts education provides a student with a wide base of understanding, equipping them with the ability to solve problems, think critically, and communicate effectively.

A liberal arts education is most commonly associated with liberal arts colleges (LACs)—small, residential institutions that commonly do not offer graduate or professional programs. However, liberal arts programs can also be found at large universities, such as Brown University and Northeastern’s College of Social Sciences and Humanities.

A common misconception is that a liberal arts education focuses solely on the humanities, which is not true. Liberal arts refers to the core academic subjects (humanities, arts, mathematics, sciences) that are separate from professional, vocational, or technical studies. A liberal arts education can be very robust in the sciences, and many LACs have strong STEM programs.

To learn more about liberal arts colleges, check out our article What is a Liberal Arts College, and How Are They Different?

How Liberal Arts Education Differs From Professional Education

Students enrolled in a liberal arts program are exposed to a variety of topics across a spectrum of fields, building skills that transfer across industries and careers. In contrast, professional education instructs students in a singular subject, helping them to develop the skills needed for success in a particular field of study and preparing them for entry into the professional world.

Learn more about the difference between a liberal arts and professional education in our article Liberal Arts vs. Professional Education: Which is Better?

Benefits of Getting an Engineering Degree From a Liberal Arts College

More Support: One of the major benefits of attending a liberal arts college with an engineering program is smaller class sizes. Engineering students are challenged with numerous difficult prerequisites such as calculus, physics, and chemistry—smaller institutions are better able to provide a supportive environment for learning. Smaller class sizes allow for more one-on-one interaction between students and faculty, make it easier for students to ask questions, and encourage deeper exploration of topics.

More Well Rounded: Proponents of liberal arts education argue that liberal arts colleges produce more well-rounded engineers than professional programs do. In addition to technical skills, students from liberal arts colleges have developed the problem-solving and critical-thinking skills that make them valuable collaborators in brainstorming sessions. Also, their ability to clearly communicate their thoughts and ideas, write papers, and prepare presentations allows them to more easily adapt to professional life.

More Flexibility: Liberal arts colleges with engineering programs are also ideal for students not ready to fully commit to pursuing an engineering degree. If, after the first year or two of college, a student discovers that engineering isn’t the path they want to follow, they can generally change majors fairly easily. Compared to the experience of being an engineering major in a big university, it’s often easier to switch majors while in a liberal arts college.

Liberal Arts Colleges With 3-2 or 2-1-1-1 Engineering Programs

Many LACs don’t actually offer an engineering major. Instead, they usually offer five-year engineering programs in partnership with another school. 3-2 programs are dual-degree programs that last five years, at the end of which students graduate with two bachelor’s degrees—one from their liberal arts program and one from their engineering program. In a 3-2 program, a student spends their first three years at a liberal arts school and their final two years at an engineering school affiliated with the liberal arts institution.

Dartmouth College offers students from participating colleges the opportunity to study at their Thayer School of Engineering as part of a 2-1-1-1 program—although they also offer a more traditional 3-2 program as well. While part of the 2-1-1-1 program, students spend their first, second, and fourth years at their home schools and their third and fifth years at Dartmouth.

Here are liberal arts schools with five-year engineering programs in partnership with another university:

Liberal Arts Colleges With Engineering Majors

While it is less common, some LACs actually do offer engineering majors. Here are the schools with this option:

Most liberal arts colleges with engineering programs are selective. Nevertheless, your individual odds of admission depend more on the strength of your profile than on the published acceptance rates. While it’s often more challenging to get accepted to college as an engineering major, this is generally not the case at LACs, since they don’t usually have separate colleges with individual admissions processes. In fact, students aren’t required to declare a major until their sophomore year at many LACs.

What Are Your Chances of Acceptance?

CollegeVine can help add clarity to the college admissions process by estimating your personal odds of admission at hundreds of schools across the country. Our free chancing engine uses a variety of factors—such as grades, extracurricular activities, and demographics—to predict your real chances of admission. The engine also highlights the strengths and weaknesses of your admissions profile, showing you where you can improve and ultimately bolstering your odds of admission.