Environmental Engineering

at UBC's

Vancouver Campus

Learn how science and engineering combine to preserve our natural environment. The Environmental Engineering degree at UBC will teach you how to address the issues surrounding waste treatment, reuse, and recycling, as well as how to mitigate air and water pollution using innovative design and engineering practices.

Why this program?

  • Learn how to work closely with corporations, law-makers, and others to improve environmental sustainability
  • Prepare for a career that is in demand by government agencies, manufacturing plants, agriculture, and resource industries across the world
  • Take classes in UBC's Departments of Chemical and Biological Engineering and Civil Engineering, which are among the top-ranked schools internationally
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Program information

  • Campus: Vancouver
  • Faculty: Faculty of Applied Science (Engineering)
  • Degree: Bachelor of Applied Science (Engineering)
  • Length 4 yrs
  • Co-op Yes
    You can combine your studies with full-time, paid work at top local and international organizations.
  • Honours No
    You can study intense specialization in a single field.

Environmental Engineering teaches you to tackle engineering problems to maintain and improve ecosystem health. You’ll learn how to address the issues surrounding waste treatment, reuse, and recycling, as well as how to mitigate air and water pollution and clean up contaminated sites.

As you explore how to better the environment, you’ll discover how to fix problems at the small scale – such as site-specific concerns and regional regulations – and the global scale, including modelling the future environmental impacts that will inform government policy. The program will help you understand policy development and implementation, engineering design, construction and deconstruction, and more.

The Environmental Engineering program combines classroom interactions with team-based projects and hands-on learning in laboratories. During your senior years of study, you’ll partner with communities on critical projects to expand your learning experiences. You’ll also take design courses each year to help you apply your knowledge and prepare you to become a professional environmental engineer.

Experiential learning

During your degree, you’ll gain valuable fieldwork experiences by working together with local municipalities. You will also have the chance to learn more about UBC’s world-class sustainable infrastructure, and use the campus as a living lab. There is also the option to take a co-op placement where you can gain paid, full-time experience in a variety of work settings and begin building a professional network before graduation.

Your future

After completing this program, you’ll be ready for a career in industries including:

  • Environmental engineering in all levels of government, NGOs, consulting, or extractive and manufacturing industries – both locally and internationally
  • Sustainability planning and design
  • Environmental policy formulation
  • Designing facilities, management systems, and information systems
  • Performing impact assessments (including regulatory, sustainability, environmental, social, and risk)

Program requirements

English-language requirements

English is the language of instruction at UBC. All prospective students must demonstrate English-language competency prior to admission. There are numerous ways to meet the English Language Admission Standard.

General admission requirements

IB Diploma Programme

  • Completed IB Diploma, including at least three Higher Level courses.

IB Certificate Courses

  • IB Certificate courses (Standard and Higher Level) may be used in an admissions average if you are graduating from a recognized high school curriculum that can be used as your basis of admission.
  • IB Math Applications and Interpretations SL, or IB Math Studies, do not satisfy the math requirement for admission to UBC’s science-based programs, the Faculty of Management, the UBC Sauder School of Business, or the Vancouver School of Economics.

Degree-specific requirements: Applied Science (Engineering)

  • IB Math Analysis and Approaches SL or HL, or IB Math Applications and Interpretations HL. (IB Math Applications and Interpretations SL, or IB Math Studies, are not acceptable.)
  • IB Chemistry 
  • IB Physics 
  • Academically strong candidates missing either IB Chemistry or IB Physics may be evaluated on a case-by-case basis

Related courses

The following subject categories are particularly relevant for this degree. Consider taking courses in these areas in your junior year and senior year.

  • Language Arts
  • Mathematics and Computation
  • Sciences
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