MEng in Wood Engineering at University of Northern British Columbia

For a long time, Wood Engineering University Education in North America is often offered in the departments of Wood Science (wood science and engineering/ technology, or forest engineering) or a few departments of civil engineering with one or two elective courses. This is simply due to the fact that wood was mainly used in low-rise housing, and there was not so much "engineering design" required. 

With the advent of mass timber, there is a growing need for structural timber engineers to design mid-to-high-rise wood/ hybrid wood buildings and large wood structures. The knowledge and skills required are beyond what the traditional wood design course can offer. And, most civil engineers do not learn much about wood in one elective wood design course, or half or a quarter of a mandatory course such as steel and timber design in their undergrad studies. One option was to do a thesis-based master's degree with a professor in wood engineering to gain more in-depth knowledge. 

Therefore, the Government of British Columbia has invested in a Master of Engineering in Integrated Wood Design degree program at the University of Northern British Columbia since 2015. UNBC currently offers North America's only English degree program in wood engineering. The program is housed in the first modern tall wood building in NA, the Wood Innovation Design Centre (WIDC). However, the WIDC building was not built for the program, but as a showcase building in BC to encourage the local lumber companies to switch to engineered wood manufacturers, as well as architectural and engineering companies to create an innovation hub. However, this idea was not successful 10 years ago. 

The MEng in Wood Engineering program is designed to be a 1-year program. With a few years of curriculum development, students are required to take 6 mandatory courses, 2 electives, and 1 three-month capstone project. Usually, students start in the Sept semester and finish in August. They take 4 courses in the Sept semester and 4 in the Jan semester, followed by the capstone project. The curriculum is listed below. More info can be found here.

If you click the course number, you can find the course descriptions. 

Requirements

Electives

Two of the following:

By taking the mandatory courses, the students can have a deep understanding of wood as a building material, and solid structural wood design skills (member, connection, composite systems, lateral systems, special topics), as well as knowledge in prefabrication and manufacturing (DfMA). The electives offer students the opportunities to broaden their knowledge such as BIM, vibration and acoustics, or advance their structural design skills by taking finite element analysis and structural dynamics. 

I don't want to make this post to long, but if you have any questions, please feel free to ask. If you are interested in taking our program, please feel free to email me.