Systems Engineering Degrees

Systems engineering is an interdisciplinary field of engineering that focuses on how complex engineering projects should be designed and managed over the life cycle of the project. Systems engineering deals with work-processes and tools to manage risks on such projects, and it overlaps with both technical and human-centered disciplines such as control engineering, industrial engineering, organizational studies, and project management.

Jobs and Salaries

Systems engineering is like putting together a puzzle, matching varied pieces together to make one cohesive whole. Engineers in this field interact with others in a variety of disciplines, depending on their particular industry, and strive to ensure that the individual parts can work together to perform a desired function. Graduates can expect to earn up to, on average, around $103,000.

Degree Requirements

Education in systems engineering is often seen as an extension to the regular engineering courses, reflecting the industry attitude that engineering students need a foundational background in one of the traditional engineering disciplines such as automotive engineering, mechanical engineering, industrial engineering, computer engineering, electrical engineering; plus practical, real-world experience in order to be effective as systems engineers. Undergraduate university programs in systems engineering are rare, and is usually offered at the graduate level in combination with interdisciplinary study taking 2 to 4 years to complete. Education in systems engineering can be taken as Systems-centric or Domain-centric. The Systems-centric focused programs treat systems engineering as a separate discipline and most of the courses are taught focusing on systems engineering principles and practice. Domain-centric focused programs offer systems engineering as an option that can be exercised with another major field in engineering. Both of these patterns strive to educate the systems engineer who is able to oversee interdisciplinary projects with the depth required of a core-engineer.