Greater Richmond

Advantages for Life Sciences

Engineering Programs

Virginia Commonwealth University School of Engineering in Richmond is Virginia’s newest engineering school. VCU offers degree programs in electrical, chemical, computer, mechanical, and biomedical engineering, computer science, and a multidisciplinary concentration in microelectronics. The school has its own board of trustees whose members are the leaders of major manufacturing, business, and financial organizations in Virginia. The school stresses creativity, industry partnerships, strategic research, understanding of business, and communication skills.

Virginia Union University offers a five-year, dual degree program in Engineering in cooperation with VCU, Howard University, the University of Iowa, and the University of Michigan. Students spend three years at Union followed by two years at one of the other institutions and receive Bachelor’s degrees from both schools.

VCU participates in the Commonwealth Graduate Engineering Program, an interactive television system that transmits classes leading to a ME, Master of Engineering, in virtually all Engineering fields.  Classes are available at night on a part-time basis to accommodate continuing students who are working.  Old Dominion University (ODU), University of Virginia UVA), Virginia Tech, and VCU transmit classes to numerous other university, business, and government sites both in Virginia and out-of-state. Classes can be offered at any site with staff support and the ability to receive a Ku-compressed signal. Currently classes meet in the Richmond area at VCU, UVA Richmond Center, Philip Morris, Honeywell, DuPont, AT&T, and Dominion Virginia Power.

Randolph-Macon College, an undergraduate liberal arts college, offers an engineering program in cooperation with Washington University, Columbia University and UVA.

University of Virginia’s Continuing Education Division’s Richmond Center offers twice-yearly Engineering review courses, coinciding with the Fundamentals of Engineering (FE) and Professional Engineering (PE) State Examinations. In addition, a joint venture between VCU’s Engineering and Business schools offers an extensive noncredit weekend program on business essentials for practicing engineers.

J. Sargeant Reynolds Community College and John Tyler Community College offer two-year associate degree programs (AS and AAS) in numerous technical and occupational fields including computer science, science, engineering and electronics technology.  The colleges also offer a BSET, Bachelor of Science in Engineering Technology, through Old Dominion University.

John Tyler Community College has recently broadened and expanded its precision machining program to a High Performance Manufacturing Technology program, offering degree and certificate programs and non-credit classes. An advisory board of 30 local companies helped the college develop the curriculum and acquire new state-of-the-art equipment.  John Tyler is also the lead school in a consortium of six colleges and has been designated as a Center of Excellence in precision machining by the Virginia Community College System. Special funding allows and requires that the Center of Excellence develop the training model and training materials, which are then shared with the rest of the community college system.