Ingenious Engineering

Chosen through multiple rounds of interviews, USC selects a highly motivated cohort of 35 to 50 students. Rotating teams of USC faculty teach two engineering courses and a technical writing core requirement and students earn credits toward their major.

Country-Specific Innovation
Each year, the program is hosted at a different Accent Study Center — Paris, Florence, London, Madrid, Rome. Local Accent faculty design and teach an experiential history elective, which challenges the novice engineers to switch gears and contemplate their host city through a different disciplinary lens. The course highlights historical and contemporary models of engineering, innovation, and technology in the local context.

One of the program’s features, also organized by Accent, is a visit to a country-specific engineering project, such as the largest tide-generated electricity grid and the high-speed rail network in France, Brunelleschi’s dome in Florence, Calatrava’s bridge in Venice, London’s Tower Bridge, the Madrid Río project, and the Roman aqueducts.