Pre-Engineering Program
As a student in the pre-engineering program at Hastings College, you have options!
Most students spend four years at Hastings earning a bachelor’s degree in physics — which gives you the expertise and background you need to be a successful engineer. After graduation, students then pursue a two-year masters of engineering degree at a university of their choosing — and many students get paid to complete their masters!
This combination allows you to explore engineering areas in smaller classes with more faculty support at Hastings College while completing hands-on projects to uncover your strengths. Our faculty want you to succeed!
You’ll find Hastings grads all over the country — and world — in places like:
- Space – Retired NASA Astronaut Clayton Anderson graduated from Hastings College in physics!
- Graduate programs at Purdue University, the University of Kansas Medical Center, Clemson University, the University of Colorado and the University of Nebraska
- Los Alamos National Laboratory
- Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy in Germany
- Micron Technology
- BD
- U.S. Department of Energy
- Honeywell
- Teaching at the collegiate level
Create your future
See for yourself how we tailor your education to your talents and your goals. Schedule a visit and we’ll demonstrate how Hastings will inspire you to reach your potential, or if you’re a high school senior, apply today.
Faculty
Dr. Brad Dinardo
Associate Professor of Physics
Dr. Bradley Peterson
Associate Professor of Physics
Pre-Engineering & Physics Success
Hastings College sophomore Sam Acosta Castellanos stepped into his position as a quality and lab intern at Nova-Tech Inc. to help ensure the quality and safety of animal medicine the company makes. This real-world experience over the summer pushed him to grow as both a scientist and a person. “I go into the lab and […]
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Landing one research experience for undergraduates (REU) is an accomplishment for a student in the sciences. Milly McClure, a senior from Liberal, Kansas, landed four. The physics and mathematics major spent summer 2024 in Texas A&M’s Cyclotron Institute. She helped faculty learn to use a new thermal evaporator—a machine integral to the institute’s research into […]
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When Lance High of Sanford, Florida, was looking for colleges, he wanted to go to a school where he could get to know professors and everyone knew his name. Hastings College, where class sizes are small and the student to faculty ratio is about 13 to 1, suited him perfectly. He found professors who were […]
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The Strategic Air Command & Aerospace Museum near Ashland, Nebraska, has displayed mementos and artifacts from the life of Clayton “Astro Clay” Anderson ’81, the state’s first and only astronaut, since the HC alumnus flew to the International Space Station in 2007. In a colorful exhibit called “The Heartland Astronaut,” visitors can see his NASA […]
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Hastings College senior Mason McMeen has gone back to his hometown of Broken Bow, Nebraska, twice to intern at Becton, Dickinson and Company (BD), an American multinational medical technology company that manufactures and sells medical devices, instrument systems and reagents. McMeen, a physics major with a mathematics minor, is a facilities engineering intern this summer […]
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Bever retiring after 17 years of teaching physics. Dr. Steven Bever won a handful of prestigious awards during his time as professor of physics at Hastings College. But one award that’s still due him as he prepares to retire is the unwritten “Most Hours Spent in the Science Building Award.” “I tend to live […]
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Jarrett Wise, a Hastings College 2014 graduate, and six co-authors recently studied how cement in abandoned oil wells reacts in different conditions to predict potential leakage pathways in offshore oil and gas wells. Their research was published in the August 2020 edition of the Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering. Wise’s research article, “Wellbore Characteristics […]
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Situated in the middle of a of nearly barren Nevada landscape sits the makings for the biggest building in the world: Tesla’s Gigafactory 1. Even with more than 4.9 million square feet of operational space, the facility is only one-third complete. The ever-growing factory is essential to Tesla’s sustained progress toward a zero-emissions future, as […]
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Brian Puckett, a senior physics major from Lincoln, Nebraska, aspires to build a mechanics career in the aerospace industry and eventually find success among the stars. While realizing his dream to explore space is no easy feat, it developed a sense of tangibility after his back-to-back summer Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU). Puckett secured his […]
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