Environmental Engineering

Appropriate environmental management in engineering calls for a high level of expertise across scientific disciplines, which is crucial if environmental engineers are to identify, assess, tackle and avoid the wide range of environmental problems that occur in industrial and emerging economies alike. Accordingly, this degree course has a distinctly interdisciplinary character, making it one of the few courses in Germany which teach key scientific principles, including biology, alongside technical and engineering content. This broad-based early-stage curriculum forms ideal foundations for specialisation in one of the course’s two focal areas, environmental assessment and renewable energies.

The course provides students with the skills they will need to assess, predict and estimate the inevitable environmental impact of major industrial projects. You’ll learn how to develop the technical and planning sides of environmental solutions in a business-aware and cost-conscious manner while complying with environmental legislation.

Environmental engineers work in a diverse range of fields, often in areas which call for an overarching view of environmental impacts and the application of techniques for reducing pollution of water, air or soil. Some of them plan, develop and help run energy and environmental plants.

Environmental engineers may:

• act as environmental officers in large corporates
• advise businesses on the current state of the art in environmental engineering and technology
• plan wind farms, biogas plants or major solar arrays
• work as sales engineers for measurement and analysis technology
• measure water and air quality on behalf of large companies or monitoring authorities
• draw up life cycle assessments relating to energy and materials for manufacturing businesses and public institutions

The degree course commences with classes on general scientific and engineering principles, in areas such as mathematics, physics, chemistry, and heat and material transfer. As the course progresses, students acquire knowledge of process engineering and environmental measurement techniques. On the basis of these key principles, students proceed to specialise in one of the course’s two focal areas:

• Renewable energies
• Environmental assessment

Semester 6 of the course is reserved for an internship in a business, a public authority or institution, or an independent engineering firm. Protecting our environment is a cross-border task, and so we use our network of contacts to give students the opportunity to complete their internship semester abroad; further, the cooperation agreements we have concluded with higher education institutions in other European countries mean that each institution recognises courses taken at the other. The seven-semester degree course ends with your Bachelor thesis.

To succeed in this degree course, you should be interested in environmental issues, science, engineering and technology in general, and in solving scientific and engineering issues in particular, and you’ll find the course easier if you have a sound knowledge of maths, physics, chemistry and biology. Ideally, you’ll be a strong communicator and enjoy connecting with specialists from other disciplines.

Interested – but not quite sure yet whether this is the right course for you? Our self-assessment test can help you make up your mind. Take it here: HAW Navigator.