Navigating Through Purdue's First-Year Engineering Paths

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The First-Year Engineering Program (FYE) at Purdue is the entry point for all beginning engineering students. In the FYE program, students complete foundational coursework in math, science, engineering, and communications. There are many different paths students can take to fulfill the FYE requirements that expose them to teamwork, industry opportunities, and networking. We hope this blog gives you more insight into Purdue’s exceptional FYE program!

PAWS EPICS 2020 Team Officers
Left to Right: Charlotte Jones (Communications Officer), Thomas Sanders (Project Manager), Elisabeth Casetti (Financial Officer)

Traditional Route

ENGR 131/132, the most common path taken by students, places heavy emphasis on teamwork in a project setting. Students take ENGR 131 first semester which covers Excel techniques such as histograms, formatting data efficiently, and analyzing data to solve a problem. Then, students take ENGR 132 second semester which covers MATLAB programming. Prior experience in Excel or MATLAB is NOT required! This path teaches students essential communication and problem-solving skills that are vital throughout their remaining collegiate career, industry, or in future academia.

Engineering Projects in Community Service (EPICS)

Students that are part of EPICS learning community take ENGR 133, which combines ENGR 131 and ENGR 132 into a one semester course. In addition to the ENGR 133 class, students are required to take a lab in EPICS for two semesters during which they will work on real, hands-on projects with local or global project partners. ENGR 133 is broken up into three parts: Excel, MATLAB, Python (no prior experience required). This path combines academic coursework with industry experience and is a great way to enhance your freshman year! First-year students can apply to learning communities, such as the EPICS one, once they have been accepted into Purdue.

Vertically Integrated Projects (VIP) 

Students a part of the VIP learning community take ENGR 133 and ENGR 179. ENGR 133 is like the EPICS path in that it combines ENGR 131 and 132, however students apart of VIP must also take ENGR 179. 179 is a class focused on the vertically integrated projects students choose to take part in at the beginning of their freshmen year. Students work on these projects throughout their freshmen year and have the opportunity to continue their work in the following years. The potential projects that students have the opportunity to choose from including Unmanned Aerial Systems, BAJA Racing, Lunabotics, but there are many more to pick from. These projects are a good way to attain hands-on experience and apply skills and knowledge learned in ENGR 133. Similar to the EPICS learning community, future first-year students have the opportunity to apply to VIP once they have accepted their offer of admission to Purdue.


Radhika Kulkarni, BME 2023, & Jenn Short, ME 2024
Recruitment Project Committee


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Purdue Women in Engineering

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