Community College Students
You don't have to be a UNCW student to take advantage of advising available through the Pre-Engineering Transfer Program. Community college students are welcome to contact the program Director for advising on transferable courses, the transfer process and requirements, distance education courses or any other engineering-related issue. Our frequently asked questions may answer some of your questions.
To pursue a four-year engineering degree, community college students need to be in the college transfer program and not the engineering technology or applied science program. Students who are in the engineering technology program can pursue a four-year degree in engineering technology from UNC Charlotte or NC A&T (external links).
An important consideration for many community college students is when to transfer and where. One can transfer directly to an engineering college after completing the minimum number of courses needed for transfer with the required grade point averages. See the transfer requirements page for more information.
One can stay at a community college and complete an Associates degree. Most community colleges do not offer engineering courses which could be part of an AA or AS degree and many do not offer upper-level calculus and physics courses.
Craven Community College Havelock Campus (external link) offers a Pre-Engineering Transfer Program as does Wake Tech. For these reasons, one may end up taking many courses that will not count towards the graduation requirements for a four-year engineering degree. Therefore, for those in the Wilmington area, and those who would like to remain in the Wilmington area for as long as possible before transferring, it may be advantageous and more expedient to transfer to the UNCW Pre-Engineering Transfer Program after completing the UNCW transfer requirements. Once at UNCW, both engineering courses and the required calculus and physics courses can be taken.
Community college academic advisors may tell you that any course you take at a community college in the college-level transfer program will be accepted by four year colleges. This is true BUT these courses may not count toward degree requirements in engineering.
The required community college math sequence for an engineering degree is MAT 271, 272, 273, and in most engineering majors, 285. Required science courses include CHM 151, PHY 251, and 252. Some engineering majors require CHM 152 also. All majors at UNCC require CHM 152 while at NCSU it is required by aerospace, biological, biomedical, chemical, environmental, and materials science. At NC A&T State, it is required by biological and chemical. Depending on math placement results, one may have to take MAT 171 (algebra) and 172 (trigonometry) before taking calculus. These courses can be used to be admitted to UNCW but will not count towards engineering degree graduation requirements.
For those currently at community college, the following information may be helpful in selecting humanity and social science courses that will count towards engineering degree graduation requirements.
The table below is for NCSU. For UNCC and NC A&T State, see the end of this document.
For most NCSU engineering majors, the 18 credits of humanity/fine arts (H/FA) and social/behavioral sciences (S/BS) required for an AS in engineering can be fulfilled simultaneously by taking one course in each category as noted below.
| Humanities (Select two courses from different disciplines |
ENG 231, 232, 241, 242, 251, 252 (H/FA) |
Social Sciences |
ANT 220, 230, 240, GEO 111, 112(S/BS) |
| Additional Breadth
(Select one course) |
Select a course from Humanities or Social Sciences
above, or one from the list below: |
| Interdisciplinary Perspectives (Select two courses)
Biological and Industrial Eng. majors must fulfill one of these requirements at NCSU |
HUM 110 (H/FA) |
Economics |
ECO 251 (S/BS) |
Underlined courses meet NCSU's Global Knowledge co-requisite.
Courses indicated in BOLD meet NCSU's U.S. Diversity co-requisite.
Notes:
Requirements in all categories above must be satisfied. A total of 21 credits are required.
UNCC transfer requirements
NC A&T State will accept courses that
meet the articulation agreement.




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