Objectives & career opportunities

The master’s degree in Environmental Engineering is a strategic, high-level master’s programme aimed at training environmental engineers and providing them with the skills needed to take decisions and lead teams. Graduates will have the scientific and technical knowledge required to identify, measure, prevent and correct environmental problems, and the skills needed to define, select and develop appropriate solutions and technologies, technological and management tools, and related action programmes. The master’s degree combines advanced scientific content and applied engineering methods in a balanced way to produce graduates who are able to solve complex problems involving different aspects of environmental engineering or successfully undertake doctoral studies in these areas. Graduates are hired mainly by engineering and environmental consulting firms, construction companies, government agencies (local, provincial, regional and state-level), universities (doctoral-level teaching) and research institutes.

General competencies

Generic competencies are the skills that graduates acquire regardless of the specific course or field of study. The generic competencies established by the UPC are capacity for innovation and entrepreneurship, sustainability and social commitment, knowledge of a foreign language (preferably English), teamwork and proper use of information resources.

Specific competencies

On completing this master's degree, students will be able to:

• Conceptualise engineering within the framework of sustainable development.
• Know and familiarise themselves with legislation applicable in the sector and become involved by making proposals.
• Direct, coordinate and develop complete projects in all areas of environmental engineering.
• Identify and design solutions for environmental problems within an ethical, social and economic framework.
• Understand the interaction of their work with society and the environment, locally and globally, in order to identify possible challenges, risks and impacts and to design appropriate solutions.
• Design and use infrastructures and installations for purifying and treating water, correctly managing waste, maintaining air quality and the treating polluted sites, taking the regulatory and legal framework into account.
• Come up with systems for monitoring the quality of air, water and soil.
• Define, coordinate and implement environmental management systems and environmental impact studies.
• Be involved in the design of processes and products through the use of appropriate techniques (cleaner technologies, life cycle analysis, etc).
• Identify, design, construct, operate and deconstruct the systems of modern society, taking into account the legal, economic and social framework, which involves the management and the optimum use of natural resources.
• Develop new systems to protect people and the environment from existing environmental damage, while progressing towards sustainable development.
• Understand the contribution and the effect of their work in different cultural, social and political contexts.