A Critical Comparison of Construction Engineering and Architectural Engineering Curricula

The nation's Construction Engineering (ConE) degree programs place a large number of their graduates into the commercial/architectural construction industry. ConE programs are often collocated with Architectural Engineering (ArchE) degree programs, a closely related discipline. Allegorically, ConE and ArchE are like brother and sister, sharing a common curricular foundation. The study's objective is to explore improving the preparation of ConE graduates for the commercial industry by adding an option to minor in ArchE. This paper reports the result of a comparative content analysis of the similarities and differences in ArchE and ConE curricula and quantifies the additional coursework necessary to add an ArchE concentration. The findings are based on a curriculum survey of every ABET accredited ArchE degree program. The study's findings are validated by a case study comparative analysis of ArchE and ConE programs at the University of Nebraska and the ConE program at Iowa State University. The paper finds a significant degree of overlap in each discipline's accreditation requirements and, depending on a given programs' existing curriculum, that adding an ArchE minor to a ConE degree program can be accomplished by including an average of nine additional credits.