Engineering Technology vs Engineering

A central question for high school students, looking to build their career path towards an engineering major at undergraduate level, is oriented towards the selection of either a B.Sc. Engineering Technology program or a B.Sc. Engineering program. These two degree programs encompass certain different characteristics throughout.

The features of an Engineering major are often already known by students due to its high prevalence and popularity among both: industry professionals and academia. This program is specifically crafted to instill critical thinking, innovation and creative design skills in students, enabling them to tackle real world challenges. Simply put, engineers are considered to be problem solvers, troubleshooters and innovative designers. Most Engineering programs involve the successful completion of a full-time thesis, usually over the course of one year, towards the end of the degree. This thesis should primarily aim at solving a novel problem or providing an optimized solution to an existing one.

An Engineering technology major is somewhat different but nothing out of this world. The underlying concept behind this program is to directly prepare students for technical jobs in industries, with innovation and design thinking not being the primary focus. Technologists have have the responsibility to perform sophisticated and technical tasks usually over an extended period of time. In Engineering Technology programs, the coursework is usually divided up into 70% practical knowledge and 30% purely theoretical content. In the senior year of this 4 year program, completion of an industry-oriented internship is mandatory, rather than a thesis. A full-blown technical project or a substantial part of it has to be executed during this internship. The technical report of this project then contributes to a credit score in your degree.

I hope that by now you are aware of the differences between the two widely studied Engineering programs. You can read more about this topic here as well.

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