An engineer's degree is an academic degree which is intermediate in rank between a master's degree and a doctorate; it is occasionally to be encountered in the United States in technical fields. (Not all universities with engineering and technical departments award them, however.)

The requirements differ considerably, depending on which university awarded the degree, but they are usually awarded for completion of a postgraduate course of one or two years in duration longer than the normal master's degree. A thesis of a quality higher than that acceptable for a master's degree is also generally required, although it usually does not have to be about original research, as would be required for a doctoral dissertation; there is often no thesis defense either.

Unlike the master's degree, which is standard step for those who are on the way to a doctorate, for those who get an engineer's degree it is usually their final academic degree; it is usually used for higher qualification employment, and not as a prelude to doctoral studies.

Note: A degree with some form of "engineer" in the name is not necessarily an Engineer's degree. For instance, a "Bachelor's in Electrical Engineering" (B.S.E.E.) is not an Engineer's degree; similarly with the "Master's in Biomedical Engineering" (M.S.Bm.E.), which is also not an Engineer's degree.

Engineer's degree abbreviations

The following list gives the most common ones:

• Civil Engineer - C.E.
• Electrical Engineer - E.E.
• Engineer in Aeronautics and Astronautics - E.A.A.
• Engineer in Computer Science - E.C.S.
• Environmental Engineer - Env.E.
• Materials Engineer - Mat.E.
• Mechanical Engineer - Mech.E.
• Naval Engineer - Nav.E.
• Nuclear Engineer - Nucl.E.
• Ocean Engineer - Ocean E.

Engineer's degrees in Europe

In countries the higher technical education of which has been touched by German influence, universities specializing in technical studies award their students an Engineer's degree instead of a Master's degree. In addition to Germany, these countries include states like the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Sweden, Finland and Belgium. The degree of Engineer may be the first one received (after five years of study), or more often it follows a Bachelor's degree (usually three years for Bachelor's plus two years for Engineer's). In local language, the degree is called "inžinier" (Slovak) or "inženýr" (Czech), the abbreviation is "Ing." and is written before the person's name. In German the degree is Diplomingenieur and in Finnish, diplomi-insinööri, abbr. DI. The word diplom refers to the thesis written at the end of the studies. In Belgium the degree is Burgerlijk Ingenieur (abbrev. "Ir.") and in Sweden the degree is Civilingenjör (both regardless of the actual specialty). This retains the 19th century idea that the "actual" engineers were the military ones.

German-style Engineer's degree is considered equivalent to a MSc. degree in U.S. or U.K. and in international context, the holders of the Engineer's degree are authorized to use degree MSc. However, there has been some debate over whether the Engineers should differentiate themselves from Masters of Science, this degree having become victim of inflation lately. It might be argued that, because the European high school curriculum covers the topics of the typical U.S. freshman year, the five-year-long Engineer's degree is actually complete equivalent of the U.S. degree.

External links

• Electrical Engineer program at the Utah State University
• Engineer's degrees at MIT
• Electrical engineering and computer science degree program at MIT (includes Engineer's degrees)
• Electrical Engineer program at the Naval Postgraduate School