Capstone Senior Design Project
The culmination of the undergraduate experience, “Capstone” is an opportunity for students to exhibit the totality of skills developed throughout their program and a required component of Northeastern’s premier Experiential Learning model.
About the Courses
Within the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering undergraduate majors, students choose between three capstone subdisciplines:
CIVE 4765 Senior Design Project – Environmental Cohort
CIVE 4767 Senior Design Project – Structural Cohort
CIVE 4768 Senior Design Project – Transportation Cohort
Each subdiscipline may have unique prerequisites. Please consult the Catalog and speak with your advisor about planning for your capstone course.
Working in teams, students design a civil or environmental engineering project that primarily involves the requisite subdiscipline. Design teams are advised by a faculty member and engineering practitioners. Lectures cover supplemental technical background specific to the project, as well as cross-disciplinary aspects of project development, value engineering, aesthetics, and constructability. Students present their projects to practicing engineers and interested parties such as community groups.
What Will I Be Doing?
Examples of CEE Capstone Projects
Civil and environmental engineers develop solutions to some of the most important and challenging problems facing society, such as climate change, energy management, sustainability, public health, and the building of the cities of the future. Past students have worked with a wide range of stakeholders, including state and local governments, private businesses, consulting and design firms, and others to mentor them in their design ideas.
You may be flying drones to survey roads for your proposal on new bike lanes, designing and testing the strength of connectors for novel timber-based construction materials at our STReSS Lab, or replicating techniques used by aquatic plants to create innovative barriers that protect coastal communities from storm surges.
- CEE Capstone Students Named Biomimicry Global Design Challenge Finalists & (poster)
- Rethinking the Design of Refugee Camps
- Transforming MBTA Bus Rt. 39 into Safe and Efficient Multimodal Corridor
- Timber-based Viewing Tower at Acadia National Park
- Rapid Deployment Structure for Disaster Response
- Charles River Green Infrastructure for Climate Resiliency
- Climate Resiliency Plan for Medford, MA
- Connecting Neighborhoods to Nature: Maple Street Redesign
CEE Senior Day: Community and Celebration
CEE Capstone courses are completed with a two-day series of events each April, where faculty and staff come together to celebrate the Seniors’ hard work. On day one, students from all three cohorts present their projects to the public at the Senior Capstone Poster Fair. This event is followed by a NUASCE BBQ organized by the Northeastern Chapter of ASCE. Day two, or CEE Senior Day, begins with a Senior Breakfast, followed by formal, in-depth Capstone Presentations from each team to faculty and project stakeholders. Upon completion of presentations, students attend the Brick Ceremony and Awards Celebration, where each senior participates in the longstanding tradition of receiving a commemorative CEE Brick and plaque, an iconic building material symbolizing the “laying of the first brick” in the construction of a bright career. Select students are recognized through the bestowal of a series of awards and scholarships. Finally, the day is completed with a Senior Luncheon to celebrate the completion of the Capstone experience.
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