Undergraduate Course Offerings

Degree Requirements

Students are required to complete seven of the courses listed below (at a grade of C- or better), of which:

  • one is a required course (Trans 310 -- a seminar course taken in the senior year)

  • at least three must be from the list of core courses, or which two must be from Departments other than that in which they are majoring.

  • the remainder may be additional core courses or from the list of approved elective courses. Courses offered by Northwestern University that are not listed here will be considered for credit towards the Minor if the course is appropriate to the student's program of study.

At least two courses of the core or elective courses must be outside the school in which the student is registered.

  • Students in the McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science may double count a maximum of two courses from their major program toward the Minor.

  • However, students registered in other schools are not allowed to "double count" courses which are part of their major, but can count courses that form "related courses," or "distribution" requirements.

  • The McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science has approved TRANS 310 as acceptable for the "social science/humanities" requirement. In addition TRANS 310 and other WCAS courses taken as part of the Minor will be considered as "thematically related" for purposes of the "social science/humanities" requirement.

It is assumed that students will already have taken courses in calculus and in probability and statistics as part of their Major.

Required Course

TRANS 310    Seminar in Transportation and Logistics

Course will meet weekly for a whole academic year.  Enrolled students will obtain one credit based on formal enrollment in the spring quarter.  Students should take this course during their senior year.  You must taken at least five of the courses for the minor by the time you formally enroll for the spring quarter.

Syllabus: The seminar will consist of four parts:

  • traditional lecture style formats by an NU faculty member concentrating on transportation policy
  • invited outside speakers from industry and government
  • field trips to transportation and logistics installations
  • student presentations of their own work completed as part of the two papers required for the course. 

It is anticipated that the first and fourth parts will comprise the bulk of the class time.  Appropriate journal and newspaper articles dealing with policy and policy analysis will be used as readings.

Evaluation: Evaluation will be based on two extended papers.  The first will be a descriptive case study of a particular transportation or logistics firm or industry.  The second will be a more analytical piece evaluating a specific public policy initiative.  Students will also be graded on class participation.

Core Courses

Students must select at least three core courses, of which at least two are from departments other than that in which they are majoring.  No substitutions will be allowed for the core courses. See below for a key to abbreviations.

WCAS-ECON-310-1 Intermediate Microeconomics I
WCAS-ECON-355 Transportation Economics and Public Policy
McC-CIV_ENG-371  Transportation Systems Planning and Management
McC-CIV_ENG-376 Transportation Systems Operations
McC-CIV_ENG-382 Infrastructure of Facilities and Systems
Either McC-IEMS-310

  or McC-IEMS-313

 Operations Research (was IEMS 319)

Deterministic Models and Optimization
McC-IEMS-381 Supply Chain Modeling and Analysis (was IEMS 328)
McC-IEMS-383 Service Operations Management

Elective Courses

The remainder of the program must be selected from additional core courses and the following list of approved elective courses.  Courses offered by Northwestern University that are not listed here will be considered for credit towards the minor if the course is appropriate to the student's program of study.  Approval for substitutions will be made by the Transportation Center's Program Committee based on a written submission made by the student.

TRANS 390 Transportation in Perspective
WCAS-ECON-309 Elements of Public Finance
WCAS-ECON-337 Economics of State and Local Governments
WCAS-ECON-349 Industrial Economics
WCAS-ECON-350 Monopoly, Competition and Public Policy
WCAS-ECON-354 Issues in Urban Economics
WCAS-ECON-361 International Trade
WCAS-ECON-370 Environmental and Resource Economics
WCAS-ECON-381-1,2  Introduction to Econometrics
WCAS-GEOG-341 Principles of Cartography
WCAS-GEOG-343 Geographic Information Systems
WCAS-HISTORY-322-2 Development of the Modern American City 1870 - Present
WCAS-POLI_SCI-221 Urban Politics and Policies
WCAS-POLI_SCI-321 Community Political Processes
WCAS-POLI_SCI-329 Environmental Politics
WCAS-SOCIOL-301 The City: Urbanization and Urbanism
WCAS-SOCIOL-312 Social Basis of Environmental Change
McC-CIV_ENG-304 Civil and Environmental Engineering Systems Analysis
McC-CIV_ENG-338 Public Infrastructure Management
McC-CIV_ENG-360  Environmental Impact Evaluation
McC-IEMS-315   Stochastic Models and Simulation
McC-IEMS-317   Discrete-Event Systems Simulation (was IEMS 335)
Either McC-IEMS-326

 or WCAS-ECON-360

 Economics and Finance for Engineers

Foundations of Corporate Finance Theory
McC-IEMS-382 Production Planning and Scheduling (was IEMS 329)
McC-IEMS-383 Service Operations Management

Graduate Level Courses

Qualified advanced students may take the following courses upon petition to the instructor

McC-CIV_ENG-471-1

 Transportation Systems Analysis I

McC-CIV_ENG-471-2

 Transportation Systems Analysis I

McC-CIV_ENG-480-1

 Travel Demand Analysis and Forecasting I

McC-CIV_ENG-480-2

  Travel Demand Analysis and Forecasting II

McC-CIV_ENG-482

 Evaluation and Decision making for Infrastructure Systems
McC-IEMS-480-1 Production and Logistics I
McC-IEMS-480-2 Production and Logistics II

School/Department Key

In the list of courses, the following abbreviations identify the relevant school and department.

McC    McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science
TRANS  Transportation Program
WCAS   Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences 
CIV_ENG   Civil Engineering
ECON    Economics
GEOG    Geography
HISTORY   History
IEMS   Industrial Engineering and Management Science
POLI_SCI   Political Science
SOCIOL  Sociology

Independent Study

Students may count up to one credit of approved independent study in transportation and logistics towards the minor.  The student may register in either TRANS 399, or a 399 in the department appropriate for the supervising faculty member.