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Academic policies
NAU Mechanical Engineering academic policies
Mechanical Engineering (ME) is a rewarding, yet challenging, career. The objective of enrolling in our program should be to learn the professional knowledge necessary to be a successful and valued Mechanical Engineer in the world community. Recognizing these objectives, the Mechanical Engineering department has the following academic policies that enable a student to navigate one’s academic career with a confident conclusion that the student is prepared for that career after graduation.
Academic information
Advanced standing in Mechanical Engineering Accordion Closed
A student enrolled in Mechanical Engineering at NAU must achieve a level of academic performance to indicate he or she is ready for the increased challenges of upper-level (300 & 400 – level) classes. This measure of success is indicated through the Fundamentals Courses Grade Point Average. These policies are enforced for all ME Freshmen with a starting NAU enrollment in Fall 2017 or later and for transfer students with a first enrollment at NAU in Spring 2018 or later.
- The student must achieve a cumulative GPA of 2.65 in MAT 136, MAT 137, CS 122, PHY 161, PHY 262, CENE 251, MAT 238, and ME 240, in order to enroll in 300-400 level courses.
- Students transferring from another university or community college: The calculation of this GPA will include any transferred coursework from other institutions with a grade of C or higher.
- Mechanical engineering undergraduate students who have completed all required foundational courses with a “C” or better, but still have an earned GPA in those courses that is below the required 2.65 level may repeat up to two of the foundational courses in which they earned a “C” to meet the minimum GPA requirement. These two ‘retakes’ are an approved exception from the university policy.
- Students are allowed only one repeat for any of these selected courses in which they earned a grade of “C”.
- A student who is enrolled in the last of these fundamental courses listed above must apply for Advanced Standing through their advisor via the Advanced Standing Application online tool.
- A student may explore how projected course grades will determine the Fundamentals Course GPA by downloading and using this excel file.
- It is to a student’s benefit to simply use the tool even earlier in their degree progression to anticipate performance levels as they approach their late sophomore or junior year.
- Students Transferring to NAU: The NAU Admissions system will admit an applicant into the campus enrollment without checking the ME Advanced Standing GPA criteria. But, the Mechanical Engineering program only allows higher-level ME class enrollment if the Fundamentals Course GPA is above 2.65 or higher.
- Thus, a student must check the Fundamentals Course GPA status prior to arriving at NAU, using incoming transfer course grades.
- Note that externally credited courses with grades lower than “C” are not transferred as part of university policy. Thus, a transferring student with any Fundamental Course grades lower than C would not be enrolling in any junior or senior ME courses until those courses are completed at NAU with a C or higher grade.
General rule for repeats of Mechanical Engineering courses Accordion Closed
Any Mechanical Engineering course required for the Mechanical Engineering major may only be repeated one time. Petitions for second repeats presented to the ME department will typically be denied and may be considered only in very rare and exceptional cases such as a documented death in the immediate family or due to a documented extended illness. Poor academic performance in previous courses is not considered a reason for allowing a second repeat of a Mechanical Engineering course, at any level.
The NAU prerequisite policy & Mechanical Engineering Department implementation Accordion Closed
All Engineering degree programs require that prerequisite courses must have an earned grade of C or higher before a student may progress to the subsequent required course. Mechanical Engineering has further clarifications on this policy which apply to any student enrolling in Mechanical Engineering courses.
These clarifications are implemented for any enrollment into Mechanical Engineering classes starting in Fall 2018.
It is our departmental policy that all students must meet the prerequisite and corequisite requirements before enrolling in engineering courses. The policy is that a grade of “C” or better must be earned in all the prerequisites in order to enroll in engineering classes. Specifically:
- All prerequisites required earlier for a requested class must have earned a grade of “C” or higher in order to take subsequent Mechanical Engineering (ME) courses, at any level.
- A student is not allowed to enroll in an ME class without having previously completed all the prerequisite courses in the plan of study.
- This requirement includes all the ‘prerequisites of prerequisites’ for courses, regardless of the number of prior semesters, in all disciplines courses in the plan of study.
- If a student has managed to successfully complete at NAU, or transfer a course into the NAU ME program, without completing or passing any of the prerequisite courses indicated by the NAU ME plan of study, the student is not allowed to continue for subsequent ME classes until all of those prerequisite courses are completed and passed by the student with a C or better.
- Coursework taken at other universities are not considered in NAU ME prerequisite requirements until after the courses are fully transferred for credit into the NAU student record.
- A transferred ME course will not be approved for equivalence to an NAU Mechanical Engineering course unless the transferred course prerequisites are the same as for the intended NAU equivalent course.
These clarifications are implemented for any enrollment into Mechanical Engineering classes starting in Fall 2018.
Academic integrity & violations Accordion Closed
NAU Policy 100601 defines how the university defines academic integrity and subsequent processes for violations of this policy. The Mechanical Engineering Department recommends a student for dismissal if the student is reported for two or more violations through this process. Note that the NAU Engineering and Professional Programs (EPP) Chairs have agreed that a student dismissed from any of their programs are also not allowed to be enrolled in any other EPP degree at NAU.
NAU BSME upper-level core courses Accordion Closed
NAU Policy 100801 requires that at least 30 credit hours be successfully completed at the upper division level at NAU in order to earn a bachelor’s degree. The BSME program further requires that at least 21 credit hours of these upper level courses be completed in these core courses: ME 286, EGR 386W or ME 386W, ME 365, ME 392, ME 395, ME 450, ME 495, ME 495L. This policy is implemented for Fall 2019 newly enrolled students.