Mechanical Engineering (BS)

Why Study Mechanical Engineering?

North Park’s strong liberal arts tradition reinforces communication, ethical reasoning, and idea synthesizing—skills required of engineers. Often overlooked at purely technical schools, mechanical engineers who also have these soft skills are more prepared to fill a crucial gap in the labor market and will be better prepared to enter the workforce immediately upon graduation.

As an urban university rooted in faith, students pursue their learning in a world-class city with internships at leading engineering firms, all with a sense of purpose.

Dr. Stephen Ray, PE, LEED AP

“Few jobs allow such direct impact on our future leaders in an environment shaped by our distinctives: urban, intercultural, Christian. Throw in a new STEM building and engineering program and it’s hard to beat.”

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Open Concept Department

In the PHEN Hub—a shared hangout, lab, lecture hall, and faculty office—students are part of a vibrant community. In this modern collaborative environment, relationships flourish between expert and student, ideas form into concrete outcomes, and hard work develops into sought-after marketable skills.

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Working as a Mechanical Engineer:  Inherently Urban

Mechanical engineers inherently engage urban issues. As a city-centered university, North Park offers students direct proximity to major organizations and a diverse urban workforce, both of which appeal to and call for mechanical engineers.

Internship, Network, and Tangible Skills

Students have access to a well-cultivated network of relationships between the engineering department and Chicago businesses. Graduates are ready to:

  • Identify, formulate, and solve engineering problems
  • Embrace professional and ethical responsibility
  • Understand the impact of engineering solutions in a global, economic, environmental, and societal context
  • Use techniques, skills, and tools of modern engineers to design, conduct experiments, and analyze data

Applied Curriculum, Access to Internships

A project-based curriculum, hands-on research in the PHEN Hub, an internship—this is how mechanical engineering candidates acquire in-demand skills. Students have interned at ComEd, SOM, CME Group, the U.S. Air Force, and Lockheed Martin developing their skills to:

  • Understand the physical world
  • Comprehend the process and relationship between science and engineering
  • Make ethical decisions on the use of science and technology