Study environment

What is it like studying engineering at NTNU?

Students are responsible for organizing their day and studies, for iitiating  contact with fellow students and finding out about duties and facilities. Still, much is already prepared for you in the form of a standard schedule of lectures and activities that support the learning process.  All courses employ student assistents for each to aid students and the faculty. Each year the degree programme for building and environmental engineering enrolls nearly two hundred students.

Learning, lectures and labs

In the first years of the programme most of core courses in the schedule are compulsory for all engineering students at NTNU. Students are expected to contribute actively to their own learning by cooperating with fellow students and participating in discussion groups and projects that supplement lectures. Through project work, students define the scope and the task themselves, and developing key knowledge and skills in the process.

Further into the study program, when students have chosen a specialization (for example road construction), there will typically be fewer students in each course and the form of instruction will change. Students become more closely connected to both the academic environment and local activities, enjoying closer contact with the lecturers, and work with problems from industry and the outside world.

In order to understand the behaviour of materials such as wood, concrete, metals, soil and water, and constructions and physical phenomena related to air flow and water currents, it is important to carry out experiments. Within several areas, the programme of study has professional laboratories and equipment for testing and product development for industry and business. A large proportion of this work is carried out in cooperation with SINTEF. A number of students link their theses directly to laboratory experiments, and work there alongside technicians with research and development projects.

In the hydrometric laboratories anything related to water currents, waves, forces and hydraulics can be tested.

Hydrology laboratories

Many problems within water and environmental engineering require data and experience from experiments. In laboratories, we can examine water currents, waves, ice, erosion from rivers, purification and water treatment.

Building and construction engineering laboratories

In Norway, the consistence of parts of buildings such as walls, doors, windows, roofing, etc. is carefully tested before being put to use. The behaviour, regarding to the climate (heat, moisture), is also tested as well as fire resistance and other accident loads. In addition, we also have laboratory activities for the investigation of materials such as soil, rock, plastics, etc.

Structural laboratories

As a student of advanced engineering you will be taught how to calculate and shape structures and parts for buildings, bridges, machines, etc. Calculation programs are developed that calculate structures and materials.

Nevertheless, laboratories are an important part of our teaching and research:

• for learning about new materials and structures;
• for studying particular characteristics;
• for proving by full-scale experiments that what we are making is correct.