Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering

Olin was founded to radically change engineering education with the goal of fueling the technical innovation needed to solve the world’s complex future challenges.

In 1997, the F.W. Olin Foundation established the college with a visionary and unprecedented grant “to be an important and constant contributor to the advancement of engineering education in America and throughout the world.” From day one, Olin had no departments or tenured faculty, allowing for true collaboration and integration of efforts.

Olin instills passion and ignites innovation by focusing engineering students on the needs of people in the real world. This broad perspective in the hands of creative and motivated students inspires technical mastery for a purpose. Olin “engineer-innovators” envision and deliver products, services and systems that transform the way people live on this planet. Learn more about our academic approach.

In the past decade, Olin’s approach has proven successful by all measures. We are attracting the country’s top faculty and students who are passionate about learning and making a difference in the world. Our student body is gender balanced and has one of the highest graduation rates in the country. Students are entering the country’s top graduate schools, being offered generous scholarships, are actively pursued by employers, or starting their own businesses right out of college. We’ve also appeared and risen on almost all of the top educational rankings.

Educational, business and governmental leaders from around the world are coming to Olin to learn about our new and effective learning environment. Olin’s Collaboratory is dedicated to co-designing transformational educational experiences with other institutions.We invite you to learn more about Olin and its unique role in the world and to join us in our effort to revolutionize engineering education.

At Olin College of Engineering we want our students to experience learning not just in formal and technical ways, but also as explorers and creators who design their own path. Learning happens everywhere -- in group experiences like faculty-led classes, student-led independent studies, and co-curriculars (where students, faculty and staff come together around common interests) -- in student clubs and organizations, ranging from highly structured engineering competition teams to service organizations, social clubs and sports teams -- in exploring the boundaries of knowledge and innovation working on research projects with faculty -- and by pursuing new ideas and passions through independent studies and Passionate Pursuits.

Learning in all of these contexts is fun and inspiring, and it lets students work on things they are excited about. These activities inspire creativity and equip students to use what they’ve learned to make a positive impact on the world. Our campus culture values engagement and learning, no matter where it happens. Each semester we celebrate student work at the Olin Expo, where students share the project they are most excited about.

The Olin curriculum is based on the idea that engineering starts with people -- understanding who we’re designing for, what they value, and where opportunities to create value exist -- and ends with people -- appreciating the social context of our work and making a positive difference in the world. At Olin, students learn how to envision positive change and also how to realize and deliver that change.

Olin College was founded because we believe there is a problem with undergraduate engineering education. The traditional curriculum is too narrow; it teaches students how to solve problems, but not how to find the right problems to solve, or how to get their solutions out of the lab and into the world.

At most schools, students spend the first semesters -- sometimes years -- taking prerequisites in math and science before they do any engineering. These programs discourage many of the students who are most interested in engineering.At Olin, students start engineering right away, with three classes in the first semester that provide hands-on experiences in several areas of engineering. And throughout the curriculum, students stay engaged by working on projects connected to real-world challenges. In their first year, students also begin to explore the arts, humanities and social sciences as well as entrepreneurship, and are able to directly integrate and apply this learning in all areas of the curriculum. Every student completes an “AHS” (Arts, Humanities and Social Science) foundation course in their first semester in order to build strong skills in communication and contextual awareness, and may continue to develop these skills through advanced self-designed AHS study. All Olin students also take an introductory entrepreneurship course in their first year, where they begin to develop an entrepreneurial mindset and learn the tools that are essential to realizing true and sustainable positive change. By their senior year, students are ready to solve real problems for companies and communities through the senior capstone engineering experiences (SCOPE and Affordable Design and Entrepreneurship).

One important facet of an Olin faculty member's role is to engage in meaningful externally-facing work through activities such as research, entrepreneurship, technical and educational consulting, creative work and more. Our externally-facing work is valued for the impact it has on outside stake-holders such as research communities, companies, other universities, the general public and others. The majority of our faculty engage in research as part of their “external impact” portfolios, and they typically involve groups of undergraduate students. For our students, conducting research with a dedicated faculty mentor can be a pivotal experience, and these experiences provide excellent preparation for graduate school and other career choices.