The Engineer's degree in the United States

In the United States, the bachelor's degree is the standard undergraduate degree awarded to engineering students and is generally the only degree required for licensure (that is, it is the first professional degree in the field). For graduate students, the master's degree is by far the most common route, which may be followed by the doctorate. The Degree of Engineer or Engineer's Degree is the least commonly obtained advanced degree in engineering. It is usually preceded by a master's degree and is not a prerequisite to a doctoral degree. It serves as a terminal degree for practicing engineers. The availability of degrees and the specific requirements differ considerably between institutions and between specialties within an institution. Officially, both undergraduate programs and graduate programs at the master's-level may receive ABET⁷³-accreditation, but ABET will only accredit a bachelor's or a master's degree at a given institution (not both). In practice, although undergraduate accreditation is common, master's-level accreditation is rare unless an undergraduate program is not available (for example, the Naval Postgraduate School).

In many other fields, the master's degree would naturally be followed by a traditional research doctorate (Ph.D.). But in this case, the engineer's degree provides an alternative that has been tailored for professionals rather than academicians. Some schools, Stanford and Caltech for example, require a thesis. But, the requirements are generally less than those of Ph.D. candidates and more comparable to those of most Master of Science students. Others, like Santa Clara University, do not have a specific research requirement. For this reason, many consider an engineer's degree to be on a level between a master's degree and a doctorate. Nonetheless, it is in fact a terminal degree, much like the Ed.S. degree in education.

In the past, it was not uncommon for a would-be engineer to earn an engineer's degree as their first and only college degree. But since World War II this has fallen out of favor, and it becomes continually more difficult to find a school that offers this option.

Note: A degree with some form of the word "engineer(ing)" in the title is not necessarily an engineer's degree in this sense. Particularly, a "Master of Engineering" (M.Eng.) or "Engineering Doctorate" (Eng. D) degree is not an Engineer's degree, nor is any other bachelor's, master's, or doctoral degree. Rather, the engineer's degree is in a category of its own. For example, a student with a B.S. and M.S. in electrical engineering might next earn the degree Electrical Engineer. The person would then have a B.S. in E.E., a M.S. in E.E., and an E.E. degree. The former two are degrees in engineering, and only the latter degree is actually an Engineer's degree.

Common abbreviations of engineering disciplines (U.S. and Canada)

An abbreviation of the discipline is often used to represent an engineer's degree where one might typically use M.S. or Ph.D. Several are potentially ambiguous, especially P.E.⁷⁴

• Agricultural Engineer - Ag. E. or A.E.
• Biomedical Engineer - B.M.E.
• Chemical Engineer - Ch. E. or Chem. E.
• Petroleum Engineer - P.E.
• Building Engineer - B.E.
• Ceramic Engineer - Cer. E.
• Civil Engineer - C.E.
• Clinical Engineer - C.E.
• Computer Engineer - Cp. E.
• Electrical Engineer - E.E.
• Electronics Engineer - Ec. E
• Industrial Engineer - I.E.
• Structural Engineer - S.E
• Software Engineer - S.E. or S.W.E.
• Engineer in Aeronautics and Astronautics - E.A.A.
• Engineer in Computer Science - E.C.S.
• Engineer in Mechanics - E.M.
• Environmental Engineer - Env. E.
• General Engineer - G.E.
• Geological Engineer - G.E.
• Materials Engineer - Mat. E.
• Mechanical Engineer - Mech. E. or M.E.
• Mechatronic Engineer - M.T.E.
• Metallurgical Engineer - Met. E.
• Mining Engineer - Min. E
• Naval Engineer - Nav. E.
• Nuclear Engineer - Nucl. E.
• Ocean Engineer - Ocean. E.
• Systems Engineer - Sys. E.

⁷³. ABET, Inc., formerly the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology, is a non-profit organization that serves the public by accrediting United States postsecondary degree programs in applied science, computing, engineering, and technology. Accreditation is intended to certify the quality of these programs. There are over 2,800 programs accredited at over 600 colleges and universities in the U.S. ( ↩

⁷⁴. Professional Engineer (P.E.) is the term for registered or licensed engineers in some countries who are permitted to offer their professional services directly to the public. ( ↩