Learning Online at Tufts
Same Faculty. Same Program. Same Degree.
The only difference is location. Tufts School of Engineering online students enjoy a student-centered experience at a leading research university, interdisciplinary work led by innovative faculty, and a diverse set of peers who want to make a meaningful impact through engineering.
Live Instruction Experience
School of Engineering online students have the opportunity to become fully immersed in the Tufts community through interactive experiences while benefiting from the flexibility of online learning.
Students connect and collaborate with their peers and faculty in real time during virtual classes that are hosted by a web camera. Class sizes are purposely kept small to encourage active engagement and purposeful discourse. Online faculty office hours are also available in this real-time format.
Asynchronous Course Experience
Outside of real-time, virtual classroom experiences, online students also complete self-paced coursework—or asynchronous learning modules—each week in preparation for live classes.
The learning modules are led by Tufts distinguished faculty members and feature course topics that are brought to life through engaging multimedia content and instruction. Students can access the learning modules any time through the Canvas Learning Management System—and review them as often as they’d like.
What Students Say About the Online Learning Experience
Showcase Your Skills and Bolster Your Career Through a Capstone Project
The capstone project spans two semesters, culminating in the online master’s programs in data science and computer science at Tufts. It provides students with a platform to design, execute, and present a project with real-world impact.
Lanie Kropp wanted to use transfer learning to classify medical images for disease diagnosis. Her research focused on the trade-offs between dataset size and similarity, contributing to her deepening expertise in neural networks and research methodologies.
- Objective: Compare the effectiveness of transfer learning using large generic datasets, such as ImageNet, versus smaller, domain-specific datasets, like x-rays, for medical imaging tasks.
- Findings: Lanie discovered that larger, more generic datasets like ImageNet outperformed smaller ones, providing insights into the balance between data quantity and relevance.
- Reflection: “I gained a lot from this experience, especially in understanding transfer learning and neural networks. I’ve delved deeper into these topics than anything else in my master’s program, thanks to the extensive time and research I’ve dedicated to them.”
Sarah McDougall focused her project on leveraging machine learning to better identify risk factors for pregnancy-related complications. Through her work, she developed skills in handling large datasets and creating multi-label classifiers while navigating challenges such as mapping medical code systems and the complexities of data preprocessing.
- Objective: Use machine learning to identify risk factors for complications, like preterm delivery and hemorrhaging, based on clinical and social data.
- Findings: Sarah discovered that the models she developed tended to produce more false positives than false negatives. This suggests that patients should be vigilant about various risk factors and outcomes and not overlook any serious issues that could impact their health.
- Reflection: “Another value of the capstone is its potential to make a real-world impact. Depending on how far you progress in the project, you could submit your findings for publication or network with others in the same research area. The journey doesn’t have to end after the second semester.”
Steve Hong created Food Tusker, an innovative smart food management system designed to minimize household food waste through smart Tupperware that tracks expiration dates. With his project that combines hardware and software development, Steve plans to launch a Kickstarter campaign to bring this eco-friendly solution to market.
- Objective: Develop a hardware-software solution to reduce household food waste using smart Tupperware with expiration tracking.
- Findings: Steve developed a working prototype that includes hardware integration, a custom display, and a Flutter-based app for cross-platform compatibility. Steve plans to develop the project further and launch a Kickstarter campaign.
- Reflection: “It’s been a really interesting journey. The complexity taught me how to scope projects effectively and focus on incremental progress. It’s been fascinating—and I get excited to get up and work on it.”
Student Support
Faculty Advisor
Tufts School of Engineering faculty members are leaders in their fields who delight in conveying the excitement of academic discovery and are committed to helping students reach their full potential. Professors provide outstanding coursework support and mentorship while often helping students make connections in the industry and build a professional network.
Tech Support
Technology is vitally important to an online program. The Tufts Technology Services (TTS) Support Desk is available 24/7 to answer technology questions and solve any challenges that students may experience with our digital learning tools.
Career Services
In addition to career counseling services and career-focused events and workshops, Tufts online students also benefit from the school’s close proximity to and connections with an array of tech firms and startups across industries in the Greater Boston region.
Alumni Community
Program graduates benefit from membership in the elite Tufts University alumni network, which includes more than 100,000 graduates from around the world. One such benefit: Tufts alumni admitted into an online MS program or the Pathway to MS (post-baccalaureate certificate) program can qualify for a 20 percent tuition reduction from the Double Jumbo Scholarship.