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Engineering Management Minor

Are you a future engineering manager?

The Engineering Management Minor is a leadership-focused program that emphasizes real-life experience and engineering practice, not just theory, equipping you with a competitive edge in the workplace. All students from Tufts University's School of Arts & Sciences and School of Engineering are welcome to complete the minor. To earn this 15-credit minor, students will complete 4 required courses + 1 elective, all taken for a grade.

Gain essential leadership skills in areas such as product and process development, communications, financial planning, and product management. Learn from the real-world examples of distinguished industry professionals as they share with you the lessons they've learned through decades of experience. The Engineering Management Minor prepares you to be a leader and an innovator in a rapidly changing, tech-driven world.

The Engineering Management Minor rounds out my resume and shows that I care about other skills, especially project management. We're at a place in the world where you can't just stay in your own field and thrive and grow in your career or as a person. Tufts has really given me a headstart and I will be better prepared throughout my career.

Dan McKeen, E19

Required Courses

  • This course will cover:

    • Organization of companies and engineering groups.
    • Financial fluency, including time value of money, return on investment, income, and cash flow statements, and balance sheets.  
    • Management of people and organizations.
    • Project and program management techniques and tools.
    • Management of research, development, and design.
    • Operations management, including manufacturing operations and supply chains.
  • This course will cover:

    • Written and oral communications in the business setting.
    • Written communications including technical reports and papers, memoranda, and electronic communications.
    • Design and delivery of effective presentations.  
    • Informal communication styles and techniques.
    • Communication across cultures.
  • This course will cover:

    • Development of knowledge, skills, and mindset essential for leading programs and teams in a business organization.  
    • Creating high-performance teams and shared visions
    • Cultural differences in leadership style 
    • Ethical considerations
    • Fostering creativity and communicating to inspire
    • Influencing without authority
    • Managing conflict and organizational change 
    • Understanding personalities of self & others and emotional intelligence

    Note: Students who have taken ENT 107 or PHIL 0024 / CVS0014 may be able to leverage either of these courses as a substitution for EM 54. Permission must be obtained.

  • This course will cover:

    • Knowledge and skill development for students who aspire to lead and manage innovation initiatives in technology-based companies.
    • Technology strategy and its role in the overall business strategy of commercial firms.
    • Role of innovation in entrepreneurial ventures and established firms.
    • Skills to present new product development proposals to senior management and/or prospective investors.

Elective Courses

The Engineering Management minor includes the 4 required courses listed above + 1 elective course (or 3 elective credits), all taken for a grade. For the elective requirement of the Engineering Management minor, students may choose from the list of courses below (all 3 credits in value) or may select courses from Tufts Gordon Institute’s portfolio of courses to comprise a minimum value of 3 credits.

    • EC3 – Principles of Accounting
    • EC5 - Principles of Economics
    • CEE53 - Engineering Economics
    • CEE156 - Biostatistics
    • CEE185 - Legal Issues in Engineering
    • CBE110 - Introduction to Optimization
    • CS171 - Human-Computer Interaction
    • CS121 - Software Engineering
    • ENP161- Human Factor Product Design
    • ES56 - Probability and Statistics
    • ES152 - Engineering Systems: Stochastic Models
    • ME140 - Inventive Design
    • ME102 - Modern Quality Control
    • PSY0006 – Psychology of Leadership
    • PSY53 – Engineering Psychology
    • PSY17 – Industrial and Organizational Psychology
    • PS104 – Public Administration
    • SOC114 – Sociology of Leadership
    • SOC122 – Organizational Behavior
    • TPS 58 – Public Speaking
    • UEP 130 | CVS 183 – Negotiation, Mediation, & Conflict Resolution
    • UEP 230 | DEIJ 254 – Negotiation, Mediation, & Conflict Resolution

Frequently Asked Questions

  • The Engineering Management Minor is a 15-credit minor for sophomores and upper-class undergraduate students from the School of Arts and Sciences and the School of Engineering. This minor is for students seeking to gain essential leadership skills in areas such as product and process development, communications, financial planning, and product management.

    The courses that comprise this minor can also be taken by undergraduate or graduate students individually to gain the knowledge offered by a specific course. Graduate students from A&S, SOE, Fletcher, Friedman, TUSM, TUSDM, Cummings, SMFA, or across the university may look to these courses for this opportunity.  

  • The Engineering Management Minor consists of 4 required full-semester courses (3 credits each), and 1 elective course (or a minimum of 3 credits of electives if your chosen elective courses are less than 3 credits each).

    The required courses include:

    • EM 51: Engineering Management (3 credits)
    • EM 52: Technical & Managerial Communication (3 credits)
    • EM 54: Engineering Leadership (3 credits)*
    • EM 153: Management of Innovation (3 credits)

    *Substitutions may be available for this course. See the specific course information above for more details on this.

    The elective course(s) may be selected from the list available above or from Tufts Gordon Institute’s portfolio of courses to comprise a minimum value of 3 credits.

  • Yes, for School of Engineering students, the courses that you take for this minor may count for another minor and/or major without restriction. Some of the most common ways that courses are double-counted are listed below:

    Majors

    As of the Class of 2024, the following Engineering Management required courses are also required for the majors indicated:

    • EM 51: Engineering Management
      • Civil Engineering Major
      • Environmental Engineering Major
    • EM 52: Technical & Managerial Communication
      • Civil Engineering Major
      • Environmental Engineering Major
      • Human Factors Engineering Major
      • Specially approved as a technical elective for Engineering Science Major
    • EM 54: Engineering Leadership
      • Computer Science Major
      • Data Science Major
      • Specially approved as a technical elective for Engineering Science Major
    • EM 153: Management of Innovation
      • Specially approved as a technical elective for Engineering Science Major

    Minors

    The Entrepreneurship (ENT) and Foundations for Future Leadership (FFL) Minors are particularly well-suited to completing in tandem with the Engineering Management Minor. All of the core courses for the ENT or EM Minors may count towards the elective requirements of the FFL Minor. Likewise, all FFL core courses may count towards the elective requirements of the ENT or EM Minors.

  • Yes, you can find complete details about the transfer credit process on the Tufts website. During this process, if you request EM course credit, then your request will be routed to the Undergraduate Transfer of Credit Department Representative listed here for Engineering Management. In conjunction with faculty, this person determines the acceptability of the content of your requested course(s). When you input your request in SIS, it is imperative that you include a link to the course syllabus. If you are accessing the syllabus through the student portal of another university, then the Tufts representative will not be able to access the syllabus through the link you use. You will need to copy the syllabus, perhaps to a Google document, and upload an accessible link in SIS. If you wish for your request to be considered for equivalency to an existing course, then please indicate this in your SIS request. Please note that transfer credits are not typically issued for core course equivalencies. Transfer credits are only issued for elective course credit. Transfer credit requests are reviewed on a monthly basis. If you do not receive a response to your request in SIS within one month, then you can please reach out to TGIstudent@tufts.edu.

  • Please email TGIstudent@tufts.edu. Thank you!

Minor Declaration and Certification

Students must declare the minor with the Registrar’s office. Please visit the Major and Minor Declaration page to learn more about this process. You can complete this process at any point during your experience with the EMM Minor.

After declaring the minor with Student Services, students must complete the Minor Certification Form below. This can be completed before you have finished all required courses and before you have received final grades. Once the form is approved, we will return a signed copy to the student's email address. Students will then bring the signed form to Student Services before their graduation period's deadline.

If you have any questions about the Engineering Management Minor, please contact Tufts Gordon Institute's Administrative team.