The Department of Engineering Sciences was established in 1969 within the Faculty of Engineering to encourage interdisciplinary education and research. The Department offers graduate programs leading to Master of Science (M.S.) and Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) degrees in Engineering Sciences for the graduates of engineering, basic sciences and life sciences (i.e. medicine, dentistry, pharmacy). The Department also offers undergraduate courses in mechanics and computational sciences to engineering students. The Department is located at the Central Engineering Building Tower (Merkez Mühendislik Binasi - MM Binası) on floors 5 through 9. Department's Mechanics Research Laboratory is located at the entrance level of the four-floor main engineering building.
The Department of Engineering Sciences is responsible for teaching the core engineering curriculum to the undergraduate students of 12 enginering departments within the faculty of engineering. These fundamental courses can be grouped under three main categories: Engineering Mathematics, Engineering Mechanics and Engineering Statistics. The courses cover subjects that apply fundamentals of mathematics, mechanics and statistics to engineering problems. In ES, their content is similar to the basic sciences and mechanics curriculum but with additions that allow a student to better consider engineering aspects. This is useful for the undergraduates of all engineering fields.
The Department of Engineering Sciences (ES) is unique at Middle East Technical University and within its Faculty of Engineering through its integration of established and emerging scientific theories into transformative approaches for engineering principles, analyses, simulations, design and practices. The department's role is to expand the curriculum beyond classical continuum mechanics by assimilating advances in the sciences into new approaches and tools. Thus, ES strives to be an internationally recognized focal program for the learning and discovery of multiscale interdisciplinary systems.
Thus, the Department of Engineering Sciences adds value to the Middle East Technical University since is one of the two departments of this kind in the country. The unique department has a distinguished history. The department has thirteen faculty members who are well known for their commitment to teaching strong fundamentals and conducting outstanding research. The department has faculty members who have backgrounds in engineering mechanics (the principles on which most areas of mechanical, aerospace, metallurgical, petroleum, civil, materials, even chemical and mining, engineering are based on) and engineering science (applied mathematicians, physicists, biologists and chemists). Some have interests in aspects of materials engineering, information technology (management systems), and the life sciences. The national and international societies urgently need exactly these types of engineers. The department fulfills a pressing social and international need.
Engineering science is a broad term that encompasses many aspects of engineering and science. ES emphasizes the mechanical sciences and so a a Masters or Ph.D. graduate of ES will have a strong background in the mechanical sciences. Depending upon the curricular options taken, this graduate should be able to pursue careers in research and development (R&D), academic fields, and engineering careers that are open to engineers from other disciplinary streams.