Curriculum & Requirements

All MIT students must complete the General Institute Requirements by the time they graduate. These include courses in physics, math, chemistry, biology, the humanities, and social sciences. Each MIT department builds on the GIRs with its own courses.

Aero-Astro curriculum

The Aero-Astro undergraduate curriculum consists of three main blocks:

• Core Curriculum: Introduces students to aerospace engineering fundamentals.
• Professional Area Subjects: Courses that treat more extensively, and in greater depth, the material covered in the Core Curriculum.
• Capstone Subjects: Through experimental work and projects, integrates the aerospace engineering disciplines, and applies much of what has been learned in the Core and Professional Area Subjects.

Aero-Astro Core Curriculum

The Aero-Astro Core Curriculum introduces students to the fundamental disciplines of aerospace engineering, providing a basic understanding of these critical disciplines:

• materials and structure
• fluids and aerodynamics
• thermodynamics
• physics and dynamics
• electronic signals, systems
• circuits, propulsion, control systems, computer programming

Much of the Core Curriculum is covered in a course called Unified Engineering, which is offered in sets of two 12-unit subjects in two successive semesters. All our Aero-Astro students take Unified Engineering together, building friendships and connections that serve them throughout their stay at MIT and beyond. Unified Engineering is taught cooperatively by a number of faculty members who introduce new students to the disciplines and methodologies of aerospace engineering, with a balanced exposure to analysis, empirical methods, and design. Laboratory experiments are performed, and systems problems tying the disciplines together are included. For example, one systems problem involves students in designing, building, and flying radio-controlled aircraft. The students integrate the knowledge they have gained in aerodynamics, structures, propulsion and control.

In addition to Unified Engineering, there are five other courses in the Core Curriculum. Two courses — Dynamics and Principles of Automatic Control — are typically taken in the first semester of the junior year. The other Core Curriculum courses are Introduction to Computers and Engineering Problem Solving; Probabilistic Systems Analysis; and Differential Equations. These last three courses are usually taken in the freshman or sophomore year.

To see where the Core Curriculum appears in the Aero-Astro Curriculum, take a look at our handy curriculum chart! (Note that this chart reflects curriculum that goes into effect beginning with the Class of 2009. Earlier classes should consult the MIT Course Bulletin)

Professional Area Subjects

Professional Area Subjects are courses that treat more completely, and in greater depth, the material covered in the Core Curriculum. Students must take four Professional Area Subjects from a selection of 12 offerings. The subjects are organized into two branches corresponding to our two undergraduate degrees: Aerospace Engineering (Course 16-1) and Aerospace Engineering with Information Technology (Course 16-2). In Course 16-1, students take at least two subjects designated as Aerospace Engineering. In Course 16-2, students take at least three subjects from among the Aerospace Information Technology list.

Aerospace Engineering subjects represent traditional aerospace disciplines integral to the design and construction of airframes and engines. These include fluid mechanics, aerodynamics, heat and mass transfer, computational mechanics, flight vehicle aerodynamics, solid mechanics, structural design and analysis, the study of engineering materials, structural dynamics, human factors engineering, and propulsion and energy conversion from both fluid/thermal (gas turbines and rockets) and electrical devices.

Subjects in Aerospace Engineering with Information Technology are in the broad disciplinary area of information technology, which plays an ever-increasing role in modern aircraft and spacecraft. This includes feedback, control, estimation, flight vehicle control, software engineering, aerospace communications and digital systems, human-automation interaction, through manual control and supervisory control of telerobotic processes, and machine-made planning and real-time decision-making. Aerospace Engineering with Information Technology subjects are taught in both the Aeronautics and Astronautics and the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science departments.