LUMS SSE provides an integrated education that not only gives the students a sound training in their professional fields, but also develops their intellectual breadth, character and physical well-being. Over the course of the 4-year program, all undergraduates are required to take courses in science, mathematics, technology, humanities and social sciences. The foundation of the SSE curriculum is a strong science and mathematics core that is required of all majors. We share the belief with some of the great universities of the world like Caltech and MIT that for a young person to grow into a first-rate scientist or engineer, their education must be founded on a broad and thorough understanding of the workings of nature. Today, this understanding is derived from physics, chemistry, and biology with mathematics as the common language of modeling and prediction. This core also prepares students for interdisciplinary modern research by blurring artificial boundaries between disciplines, helping students recognize and exploit connections between different branches of sciences and engineering.
Thus most of our freshman (first) year courses and some of our sophomore (second) year courses are required of all majors. They offer a well-balanced mix of theory and original state-of-the-art laboratory experiments devised by SSE faculty. Students will be asked to declare their major close to the end of the freshman year, after they have experienced the knowledge that lies at the foundation of that major. Students begin to specialize during the sophomore year, and take more specialized courses during the junior (third) and senior (fourth) years when they also get the opportunity to do independent projects and research.
The typical course schedule for freshmen is shown below.
Typical Freshman Year Course Schedule
Fall Semester
Spring Semester
Calculus I
Calculus II
Mechanics
Electricity & Magnetism
Principles of Chemistry
Biology
Experimental Physics Lab
Biology Lab
Writing & Communication
Experimental Chemistry I
Computational Problem Solving
Islamic Studies & Pakistan Studies
LUMS SSE reserves the right to make changes to the curriculum without notice.
