There are many ways to use best ai tools for students. Here are a few examples:
- To help you study and learn. AI tools can be used to create personalized learning plans, generate practice questions, and provide feedback on your work.
- To help you stay organized and manage your time. AI tools can be used to create to-do lists, set reminders, and track your progress. For example, the AI-powered productivity app Evernote can help you organize your notes, documents, and ideas.
- To help you research and find information. AI tools can be used to search for information, filter out irrelevant results, and summarize complex topics. For example, the AI-powered search engine Google Scholar can help you find academic papers on a variety of topics.
- To help you create and collaborate on projects. AI tools can be used to generate ideas, create presentations, and collaborate with others on projects. For example, the AI-powered creative writing tool Grammarly can help you improve your writing by identifying grammar errors and style issues.
- To help you prepare for exams. AI tools can be used to create practice exams, simulate real-world test conditions, and provide feedback on your performance. For example, the AI-powered test prep platform Kaplan can help you prepare for standardized tests like the SAT and ACT.
Table of Content:-
- Here are some tips for using AI tools responsibly as a student:
- 1. Gradescope
- 2. ReadCube Papers – Elevating Your Research Experience
- 3. Speechify – Unlocking the Power of Audio Learning and Accessibility
- 4. StepWise Math – Mastering Mathematics Made Easier
- 5. Grammarly – Elevate Your Writing to Perfection
- 6. ChatGPT
- 7. Google Bard
These are just a few of the many ways that AI tools can be used by students. As AI technology continues to develop, we can expect to see even more ways to use AI to enhance the learning experience.
Here are some tips for using AI tools responsibly as a student:
- Be aware of the limitations of AI tools. AI tools are not perfect and can sometimes make mistakes. It is important to use them in conjunction with other resources and to be critical of the information they provide.
- Be mindful of the potential biases of AI tools. AI tools are trained on data that is created by humans, and this data can reflect human biases. It is important to be aware of these biases and to critically evaluate the output of AI tools.
- Use AI tools ethically. AI tools should not be used to cheat or to plagiarize. They should be used to help students learn and to improve their understanding of the material.
Gradescope is a powerful and innovative platform that has proven to be a game-changer for educators and students alike.
As an AI-powered grading and assessment tool, Gradescope streamlines the grading process, enhances feedback quality, and provides valuable insights into student performance.
Having used Gradescope extensively, I can confidently say that it’s a versatile tool with numerous benefits.
One of the standout features of Gradescope is its ability to handle various types of assessments. Whether it’s multiple-choice questions, short answers, coding assignments, or even handwritten responses, Gradescope’s AI-driven algorithms can interpret and evaluate them accurately.
This versatility is a huge advantage for instructors who deal with a diverse range of subjects and assignments.
From a student’s perspective, submitting assignments on Gradescope is straightforward and user-friendly. The platform provides an efficient way to upload work digitally, and for handwritten assignments, the option to scan and upload is seamless.
Moreover, the prompt feedback offered by Gradescope’s AI is invaluable. It pinpoints areas of improvement and highlights common mistakes, helping students understand their errors and rectify them.
As an instructor, the time-saving aspect of Gradescope cannot be overstated. The traditional process of manual grading is replaced with a streamlined digital workflow. The tool’s AI assists in the initial grading, which can then be reviewed and adjusted by the instructor.
This significantly reduces the grading time, allowing educators to focus more on providing insightful feedback and engaging with students.
The rubric creation and customization feature is another boon for educators. Gradescope enables the creation of detailed rubrics that align with the learning objectives of the assignments.
This ensures consistency in grading and provides a transparent assessment process for students.
In terms of improvement, while Gradescope’s AI is impressive, there may be occasional instances where it misinterprets or misgrades complex answers. However, the ability to manually review and adjust grades mitigates this concern.
Gradescope also offers comprehensive analytics on student performance. Instructors can gain insights into class averages, question-level performance, and identify common misconceptions.
This data-driven approach empowers educators to fine-tune their teaching strategies and address areas of difficulty effectively.
In conclusion, Gradescope has redefined the grading and assessment landscape by seamlessly integrating AI technology into education. Its user-friendly interface, robust assessment capabilities, and time-saving features make it an invaluable tool for both educators and students.
While no tool is without minor drawbacks, the overall benefits that Gradescope brings to the table make it a must-have for any educational institution aiming to enhance the learning experience and streamline the grading process.
Website Link: https://www.gradescope.com/
2. ReadCube Papers – Elevating Your Research Experience
In the digital age, managing and organizing research materials is an essential skill for academics, researchers, and students. Enter ReadCube Papers, an innovative platform designed to streamline the research process and transform the way you engage with scholarly content.
Having explored its features extensively, I’m excited to share my review of ReadCube Papers and how it can elevate your research experience to new heights.
Sleek and Intuitive Design
One of the first things that struck me about ReadCube Papers is its user-friendly interface. The platform boasts a sleek and intuitive design that facilitates easy navigation, making it ideal for both seasoned researchers and those new to the world of academic literature.
The clean layout ensures that you can focus on your research without being overwhelmed by unnecessary clutter.
Effortless Organization and Management
Say goodbye to the days of scattered PDFs and endless folders. ReadCube Papers empowers you to organize and manage your research library with remarkable efficiency.
The platform’s library management tools allow you to import and categorize research articles seamlessly. The integrated search feature enables you to find specific papers swiftly, saving you valuable time and ensuring that no vital source goes unnoticed.
Annotation and Collaboration Made Simple
Collaborative research projects become a breeze with ReadCube Papers. The annotation tools enable you to highlight, underline, and add notes to PDFs directly within the platform.
This feature is particularly useful for group discussions and joint research endeavors, as it fosters effective communication and idea-sharing. Moreover, the ability to generate and share clickable links to specific highlights adds an extra layer of convenience to collaboration.
Discover and Stay Updated
Staying up to date with the latest research is essential in any field. ReadCube Papers simplifies this process through its automated article recommendations.
By analyzing your library and preferences, the platform suggests relevant articles that you might find insightful. This feature not only broadens your knowledge base but also keeps you informed about the most recent developments in your area of interest.
Seamless Citation Management
The hassles of proper citation can be a headache for researchers. ReadCube Papers alleviates this concern by integrating citation management tools. The platform supports various citation styles, making it a valuable asset whether you’re writing an academic paper, thesis, or any other research-related document.
Room for Improvement
While ReadCube Papers excels in many aspects, there are a few areas where it could further enhance the user experience. Expanding the integration with popular reference managers and improving the mobile app’s functionality would undoubtedly elevate the platform even more.
Final Verdict: Elevating Your Research Journey
In the grand tapestry of research, ReadCube Papers emerges as a vibrant thread that weaves together efficiency, organization, and collaboration. Its user-friendly interface, intuitive features, and robust annotation tools empower researchers to delve deeper into their work while fostering effective collaboration.
While there’s always room for growth, ReadCube Papers undeniably stands out as a platform that can redefine how we interact with scholarly literature. Embrace it, and watch your research experience reach new heights of productivity and engagement. It is a best ai tools for students.
Website Link: https://www.papersapp.com/
3. Speechify – Unlocking the Power of Audio Learning and Accessibility
In a world where information is abundant but time is scarce, finding efficient ways to consume content is paramount.
Enter Speechify, a best ai tools for students that transforms written text into spoken words, making learning and accessibility more engaging and accessible.
Having delved into the capabilities of Speechify, I’m thrilled to share my review of how this innovative tool can redefine your learning experience and level the playing field for all.
One of the most remarkable aspects of Speechify is its commitment to accessibility. This platform opens doors for individuals with visual impairments, learning disabilities, or simply those who prefer auditory learning.
By converting written text into spoken audio, Speechify enables everyone to engage with content effortlessly, fostering a more inclusive learning environment.
Seamless Text-to-Speech Conversion
Speechify’s text-to-speech technology is nothing short of impressive. The platform reads aloud various types of content, including textbooks, articles, PDFs, and more.
The natural-sounding voice and adjustable playback speed allow you to tailor the experience to your preferences, making learning an even more enjoyable and personalized endeavor.
Transforming Learning On the Go
The convenience of audio learning cannot be overstated, especially in today’s fast-paced world. Speechify’s mobile app takes this convenience a step further, allowing you to learn while commuting, exercising, or performing other tasks.
This transforms idle moments into valuable learning opportunities, enabling you to absorb knowledge effortlessly.
Enhancing Productivity and Multitasking
Speechify isn’t just for students; professionals can also harness its power to boost productivity. Imagine turning your commute into a time of skill enhancement or catching up on industry-related articles while cooking. The ability to multitask and absorb information simultaneously can be a game-changer for those with busy schedules.
Personalized Learning Experience
With Speechify, customization is at your fingertips. You can highlight text to focus on specific sections for conversion, making revision or study sessions more targeted. The platform also integrates with various content sources, ensuring that the material you need is readily available for audio conversion.
Room for Improvement
While Speechify offers a remarkable learning experience, there’s always room for growth. Expanding the range of supported languages and dialects, as well as refining the punctuation and intonation of the generated speech, could enhance the overall experience even further.
Final Verdict: Embrace the Power of Your Ears
In a world where time and accessibility are precious commodities, Speechify emerges as a beacon of innovation. Its ability to convert written text into spoken words not only redefines how we learn but also ensures that learning is accessible to everyone.
The platform’s commitment to customization, convenience, and inclusion sets it apart as a tool that can revolutionize education, productivity, and accessibility.
So, whether you’re a student striving for efficient study sessions, a professional aiming to stay ahead of the curve, or someone seeking equal access to information, Speechify invites you to embrace the power of your ears and embark on a transformative learning journey.
Website Link: https://speechify.com/
4. StepWise Math – Mastering Mathematics Made Easier
Navigating the realm of mathematics can be a challenging journey, filled with complex equations, intricate concepts, and a need for precise problem-solving skills.
Fortunately, there’s a guiding light that’s revolutionizing the way students approach math education: StepWise Math.
In this review, we’ll delve into the features and benefits of StepWise Math, a platform designed to transform your math learning experience and empower you to conquer even the most daunting math challenges.
Unlocking Conceptual Understanding
StepWise Math takes a refreshing approach to math education by focusing on conceptual understanding rather than rote memorization.
The platform believes in the power of comprehending the “why” behind mathematical concepts. This empowers students to build a strong foundation, enabling them to tackle a wide range of problems with confidence.
Interactive and Adaptive Learning
One of the standout features of StepWise Math is its interactive and adaptive learning environment. The platform provides personalized lessons and practice problems that adjust to your skill level and progress. This ensures that you’re always engaged at the right level of challenge, fostering a dynamic learning experience.
Navigating through complex math problems can often feel like traversing a maze. StepWise Math acts as your personal guide, breaking down problems into manageable steps.
The platform not only provides the solution but also explains each step along the way. This approach not only helps you arrive at the right answer but also equips you with problem-solving strategies.
One of the most common questions students have is, “When will I use this in real life?” StepWise Math addresses this concern by showcasing the practical applications of mathematical concepts.
By understanding how math is intertwined with various fields, from science to finance, you gain a deeper appreciation for its relevance beyond the classroom.
Instant Feedback and Progress Tracking
The instant feedback mechanism offered by StepWise Math is a game-changer. As you work through problems, you receive immediate feedback on your solutions, helping you identify areas of improvement. The platform also offers progress tracking, allowing you to monitor your growth and celebrate your achievements.
Room for Improvement
While StepWise Math offers a comprehensive and engaging learning experience, there’s always room for enhancements. Expanding the range of math topics covered and incorporating more interactive elements, such as quizzes and challenges, could further enrich the learning journey.
Final Verdict: Empowering Math Mastery
StepWise Math emerges as a beacon of innovation in the realm of math education. Its focus on conceptual understanding, guided problem-solving, and adaptive learning ensures that students not only conquer math challenges but also develop a deep appreciation for the subject.
Whether you’re a student seeking to ace exams, a professional aiming to enhance analytical skills, or anyone interested in mastering mathematics, StepWise Math invites you to embark on a journey that transcends formulas and equations, leading you toward genuine math mastery.
Website Link: https://stepwisemath.ai/
5. Grammarly – Elevate Your Writing to Perfection
In the digital age, effective communication is more crucial than ever, whether it’s in academic papers, professional emails, or everyday conversations. Enter Grammarly, a powerful AI-driven tool or best ai tools for students that promises to enhance your writing by eliminating errors and refining your language.
In this review, we’ll delve into the features and benefits of Grammarly, best ai tools for students that’s become a staple for writers seeking to elevate their written communication to perfection.
Unparalleled Proofreading Accuracy
Grammarly’s flagship feature lies in its unmatched ability to detect grammar, spelling, punctuation, and even contextual errors.
Grammarly best ai tools for students that meticulously combs through your text, offering real-time suggestions to rectify mistakes and enhance the clarity of your writing. This feature alone is a game-changer for anyone striving for error-free content.
Enhanced Vocabulary and Style
Beyond correcting errors, Grammarly provides suggestions to improve the style, tone, and overall impact of your writing. Its vocabulary enhancement feature offers synonyms and contextually appropriate word choices, enabling you to craft more compelling and articulate sentences.
Customized Writing Insights
Grammarly doesn’t just correct your mistakes; it educates you about them. The platform provides explanations for its suggestions, helping you understand the rules and principles of effective writing. This personalized learning approach empowers you to become a more confident and skilled writer over time.
Adaptable for Different Writing Styles
Whether you’re crafting a formal research paper, a casual blog post, or an engaging social media update, Grammarly adapts to your writing style. The platform’s ability to cater to various genres ensures that your content remains polished and consistent, regardless of the context.
Seamless Integration and Accessibility
Grammarly’s integration with popular writing platforms and browsers ensures that its assistance is always within reach. From Microsoft Word to web browsers like Google Chrome, you can receive real-time feedback and suggestions as you type. This accessibility ensures that your writing remains impeccable across different platforms.
Room for Improvement
While Grammarly is undoubtedly a powerhouse, there are areas where improvements could be made. Occasionally, the tool might misinterpret the context and offer suggestions that don’t align with the writer’s intent. Additionally, expanding the range of writing style recommendations could enhance the platform’s versatility.
Final Verdict: Your Writing’s Best Friend
Grammarly best ai tools for students that emerges as a loyal companion for writers of all kinds. Its ability to enhance your writing through error detection, vocabulary enhancement, and style suggestions is unparalleled.
Whether you’re a student striving for polished essays, a professional aiming to craft persuasive reports, or anyone seeking to communicate more effectively, Grammarly is your trusty sidekick on the journey toward impeccable writing.
With its seamless integration, educational insights, and dedication to perfection, Grammarly proves itself as an indispensable tool in the modern writer’s toolkit.
Website Link: https://www.grammarly.com/
ChatGPT can be a helpful best ai tools for students in a number of ways. Here are a few examples:
- To get help with homework and assignments. ChatGPT can be used to generate practice questions, provide feedback on your work, and help you understand difficult concepts. For example, you could ask ChatGPT to “explain the concept of gravity” or “generate 10 practice questions on the Pythagorean theorem.”
- To get writing help. ChatGPT can be used to proofread your writing, provide feedback on your style, and help you come up with new ideas. For example, you could ask ChatGPT to “edit my essay on the causes of the French Revolution” or “generate a thesis statement for my paper on climate change.”
- To research topics. ChatGPT can be used to search for information on a variety of topics and summarize complex concepts. For example, you could ask ChatGPT to “summarize the history of the civil rights movement” or “find 5 credible sources on the effects of climate change.”
- To brainstorm ideas. ChatGPT can be used to generate new ideas and help you come up with creative solutions to problems. For example, you could ask ChatGPT to “help me brainstorm ideas for a new business” or “generate a list of marketing strategies for my product.”
- To learn new things. ChatGPT can be used to learn about a variety of topics, from history and science to literature and philosophy. For example, you could ask ChatGPT to “tell me about the life of Albert Einstein” or “explain the theory of relativity.”
Here are some tips for using ChatGPT effectively as a student:
- Be clear and specific in your prompts. The more specific you are, the better ChatGPT will be able to understand what you are asking.
- Use follow-up questions to get the information you need. If ChatGPT does not give you the answer you are looking for, try asking follow-up questions to clarify your request.
- Be aware of the limitations of ChatGPT. ChatGPT is not a human tutor and it cannot replace the need for studying and learning.
Overall, ChatGPT can be a valuable ai tool for students. However, it is important to use it responsibly and to be aware of its limitations
Website Link: https://chat.openai.com/
7. Google Bard
Google Bard is a best ai tools for students, also known as a conversational AI or chatbot trained to be informative and comprehensive. How I can rank my website on Google.
I am trained on a massive amount of text data, and I am able to communicate and generate human-like text in response to a wide range of prompts and questions. For example, I can provide summaries of factual topics or create stories.
Google Bard can be a best ai tools for students in a number of ways. Here are a few examples:
- To get help with homework and assignments. Google Bard can be used to generate practice questions, provide feedback on your work, and help you understand difficult concepts. For example, you could ask Google Bard to “explain the concept of gravity” or “generate 10 practice questions on the Pythagorean theorem.”
- To get writing help. Google Bard can be used to proofread your writing, provide feedback on your style, and help you come up with new ideas. For example, you could ask Google Bard to “edit my essay on the causes of the French Revolution” or “generate a thesis statement for my paper on climate change.”
- To research topics. Google Bard best ai tools for students that can be used to search for information on a variety of topics and summarize complex concepts. For example, you could ask Google Bard to “summarize the history of the civil rights movement” or “find 5 credible sources on the effects of climate change.”
- To brainstorm ideas. Google Bard best ai tools for students that can be used to generate new ideas and help you come up with creative solutions to problems. For example, you could ask Google Bard to “help me brainstorm ideas for a new business” or “generate a list of marketing strategies for my product.”
- To learn new things. Google Bard best ai tools for students that can be used to learn about a variety of topics, from history and science to literature and philosophy. For example, you could ask Google Bard to “tell me about the life of Albert Einstein” or “explain the theory of relativity.”
Here are some tips for using Google Bard effectively as a student:
- Be clear and specific in your prompts. The more specific you are, the better Google Bard will be able to understand what you are asking.
- Use follow-up questions to get the information you need. If Google Bard does not give you the answer you are looking for, try asking follow-up questions to clarify your request.
- Be aware of the limitations of Google Bard. Google Bard is not a human tutor and it cannot replace the need for studying and learning.
Overall, Google Bard can be a valuable tool for students. However, it is important to use it responsibly and to be aware of its limitations.
Here are some specific examples of how Google Bard can be used by students:
- A student can use Google Bard best ai tools for students that get help with their homework by asking questions about specific concepts or problems.
- A student can use Google Bard to get feedback on their writing by asking Google Bard to proofread their essays or papers.
- A student can use Google Bard to research a topic by asking Google Bard to summarize articles or books on the topic.
- A student can use Google Bard to brainstorm ideas for a project by asking Google Bard to generate lists of possible solutions or ideas.
- A student can use Google Bard to learn about a new topic by asking Google Bard to provide information on the topic.
ai tools for education
ai tools for education
ai tools for education


The picaresque novel (Spanish: picaresca, from pícaro, for "rogue" or "rascal") is a genre of prose fiction. It depicts the adventures of a roguish but "appealing hero," usually of low social class, who lives by his wits in a corrupt society. Picaresque novels typically adopt a realistic style. There are often some elements of comedy and satire.
While the term "picaresque novel" was only coined in 1810, the picaresque novel originated in Imperial Rome during the first-second century C.E., in particular with works such as the Satyricon of Petronius and later, and more particularly with authors such as Apuleius in Roman Numidia. It would see a revival in Spain during the Spanish Golden Age in 1554. Early Spanish contributors included Mateo Alemán and Francisco de Quevedo, who were influenced in particular by Apuleius' second century work. Other notable ancient influences of the modern picaresque genre include Roman playwrights such as Plautus and Terence.
According to the traditional view of Thrall and Hibbard (first published in 1936), seven qualities distinguish the picaresque novel or narrative form, all or some of which an author may employ for effect: These seven defining features are:
- A picaresque narrative is usually written in first person as an autobiographical account.
- The main character is often of low character or social class. They get by with wits and rarely deign to hold a job.
- There is little or no plot. The story is told in a series of loosely connected adventures or episodes.
- There is little if any character development in the main character. Once a pícaro, always a pícaro. Their circumstances may change but these rarely result in a change of heart.
- The pícaro's story is told with a plainness of language or Realism.
- Satire is sometimes a prominent element.
- The behavior of a picaresque protagonist stops just short of criminality. Carefree or immoral rascality positions the picaresque hero as a sympathetic outsider, untouched by the false rules of society.
In the English-speaking world, the term "picaresque" is often used loosely to refer to novels that contain some elements of this genre; e.g. an episodic recounting of adventures on the road. The term is also sometimes used to describe works which only contain some of the genre's elements, such as Cervantes' Don Quixote, or Charles Dickens' Pickwick Papers.
The word pícaro first starts to appear in Spain with the current meaning in 1545, though at the time it had no association with literature. The word pícaro does not appear in Lazarillo de Tormes (1554), the novella credited by modern scholars with founding the genre. The expression picaresque novel was coined in 1810. Its validity as a generic label in the Spanish sixteenth and seventeenth centuries—Cervantes certainly used "picaresque" with a different meaning than it has today—has been called into question. There is unresolved debate within Hispanic studies about what the term means, or meant, and which works were, or should be included. The only work clearly called "picaresque" by its contemporaries was Mateo Alemán's Guzmán de Alfarache (1599), which to them was the Libro del pícaro (The Book of the Pícaro).
Lazarillo de Tormes
While elements of Chaucer and Boccaccio have a picaresque feel and may have contributed to the style, the modern picaresque begins with Lazarillo de Tormes. It was published anonymously in 1554 in Burgos, Medina del Campo, and Alcalá de Henares in Spain, and also in Antwerp, which at the time was under Spanish rule as a major city in the Spanish Netherlands. It is variously considered either the first picaresque novel or at least the antecedent of the genre.
The protagonist, Lázaro, lives by his wits in an effort to survive and succeed in an impoverished country full of hypocrisy. As a pícaro character, he is an alienated outsider, whose ability to expose and ridicule individuals compromised within society gives him a revolutionary stance. Lázaro states that the motivation for his writing is to communicate his experiences of overcoming deception, hypocrisy, and falsehood (engaño.)
The character type draws on elements of characterization already present in Roman literature, especially Petronius' Satyricon. Lázaro shares some of the traits of the central figure of Encolpius, a former gladiator, though it is unlikely that the author had access to Petronius' work. From the comedies of Plautus, Lazarillo borrows the figure of the parasite and the supple slave. Other traits are taken from Apuleius' The Golden Ass. The Golden Ass and Satyricon are rare surviving samples of the "Milesian tale," a popular genre in the classical world. They were revived and widely read in Renaissance Europe.
The principal episodes of Lazarillo are based on Arabic folktales that were well known to the Moorish inhabitants of Spain. The Arabic influence may account for the negative portrayal of priests and other church officials in Lazarillo. Arabic literature, which was read widely in Spain in the time of Al-Andalus and possessed a literary tradition with similar themes, is thus another possible influence on the picaresque style. Al-Hamadhani (d.1008) of Hamadhan (Iran) is credited with inventing the literary genre of maqamat in which a wandering vagabond makes his living on the gifts his listeners give him following his extemporaneous displays of rhetoric, erudition, or verse, often done with a trickster's touch. Ibn al-Astarkuwi or al-Ashtarkuni (d.1134) also wrote in the genre maqamat, comparable to later European picaresque.
The curious presence of Russian loanwords in the text of the Lazarillo also suggests the influence of medieval Slavic tales of tricksters, thieves, itinerant prostitutes, and brigands, who were common figures in the impoverished areas bordering on Germany to the west. After diplomatic ties to Germany and Spain were established under the emperor Charles V, these tales began to be read in Italian translations in the Iberian Peninsula.
As narrator of his own adventures, Lázaro seeks to portray himself as the victim of both his ancestry and his circumstance. This means of appealing to the compassion of the reader would be directly challenged by later picaresque novels such as Guzmán de Alfarache (1599/1604) and El Buscón (composed in the first decade of the seventeenth century and first published in 1626) because the idea of determinism used to cast the pícaro as a victim clashed with the Counter-Reformation doctrine of free will.
Other initial works
An early example is Mateo Alemán's Guzmán de Alfarache (1599), characterized by religiosity. Guzmán de Alfarache is a fictional character who lived in San Juan de Aznalfarache, Seville, Spain.
Francisco de Quevedo's El Buscón (1604 according to Francisco Rico; although the exact date is uncertain, it was certainly a very early work) is considered the masterpiece of the subgenre by A. A. Parker, because of his baroque style and the study of the delinquent psychology. However, a more recent school of thought, led by Francisco Rico, rejects Parker's view, contending instead that the protagonist, Pablos, is a highly unrealistic character, simply a means for Quevedo to launch classist, racist and sexist attacks. Rico argues that the structure of the novel is radically different from previous works of the picaresque genre, claiming that Quevedo uses the conventions of the picaresque as a mere vehicle to show off his abilities with conceit and rhetoric, rather than to construct a satirical critique of Spanish Golden Age society.
Miguel de Cervantes wrote several works "in the picaresque manner, notably Rinconete y Cortadillo (1613) and El coloquio de los perros (1613; “Colloquy of the Dogs”)". "Cervantes also incorporated elements of the picaresque into his greatest novel, Don Quixote (1605, 1615)", the "single most important progenitor of the modern novel", that literary critic M. H. Abrams has described as a "quasi-picaresque narrative." Cervantes' hero is not a rogue but a foolish knight.
In order to understand the historical context that led to the development of these paradigmatic picaresque novels in Spain during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, it is essential to take into consideration the circumstances surrounding the lives of conversos, whose ancestors had been Jewish, and whose Christian faith was subjected to close scrutiny and mistrust.
In other European countries, these Spanish novels were read and imitated. In Germany, Hans Jakob Christoffel von Grimmelshausen wrote Simplicius Simplicissimus (1669), the most important of non-Spanish picaresque novels. It describes the devastation caused by the Thirty Years' War. Grimmelshausen's novel has been called an example of the German abenteuerroman ("adventure novel.") The abenteuerroman is Germany's version of the picaresque novel. It is an "entertaining story of the adventures of the hero, but there is also often a serious aspect to the story."
Alain-René Le Sage's Gil Blas (1715) is a classic example of the genre, which in France had declined into an aristocratic adventure. In Britain, the first example is Thomas Nashe's The Unfortunate Traveller (1594) in which a court page, Jack Wilson, exposes the underclass life in a string of European cities through lively, often brutal descriptions. The body of Tobias Smollett's work, and Daniel Defoe's Moll Flanders (1722) are also considered picaresque, but they lack the sense of religious redemption of delinquency that was very important in Spanish and German novels. The triumph of Moll Flanders is more economic than moral. While the mores of the early eighteenth century wouldn't permit Moll to be an actual heroine, Defoe hardly disguises his admiration for her resilience and resourcefulness.
Works with some picaresque elements
The autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini, written in Florence beginning in 1558, also has much in common with the picaresque.
The classic Chinese novel Journey to the West is considered to have considerable picaresque elements. Written in 1590, it is contemporary with much of the picaresque tradition, but is unlikely to have been directly influenced by the European genre.
Eighteenth and nineteenth centuries
Henry Fielding proved his mastery of the form in Joseph Andrews (1742), The Life and Death of Jonathan Wild, the Great (1743) and The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling (1749), though Fielding attributed his style to an "imitation of the manner of Cervantes, author of Don Quixote."
William Makepeace Thackeray is the master of the nineteenth-century English picaresque. Like Moll Flanders, Thackeray's best-known work, Vanity Fair: A Novel Without a Hero (1847-1848)—a title ironically derived from John Bunyan's Puritan allegory of redemption The Pilgrim's Progress (1678)—follows the career of fortune-hunting adventuress Becky Sharp. His earlier novel The Luck of Barry Lyndon (1844) recounts the rise and fall of an Irish arriviste conniving his way into the eighteenth-century English aristocracy.
Aleko Konstantinov wrote the 1895 novel Bay Ganyo about the eponymous Bulgarian rogue. The character conducts business of uneven honesty around Europe before returning home to get into politics and newspaper publishing. Bay Ganyo is a well-known stereotype in Bulgaria.
Works influenced by the picaresque
In the English-speaking world, the term "picaresque" has referred more to a literary technique or model than to the precise genre that the Spanish call picaresco. The English-language term can simply refer to an episodic recounting of the adventures of an anti-hero on the road.
Laurence Sterne's The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman (1761-1767) and A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy (1768) each have strong picaresque elements. Voltaire's French novel Candide (1759) contains elements of the picaresque. An interesting variation on the tradition of the picaresque is The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan (1824), a satirical view on early nineteenth-century Persia, written by a British diplomat, James Morier.
Elements of the picaresque novel are found in Charles Dickens' The Pickwick Papers (1836–37). Nikolai Gogol occasionally used the technique, as in Dead Souls (1842–52). Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884) also has some elements of the picaresque novel.
Twentieth and twenty-first centuries
Jaroslav Hašek's The Good Soldier Švejk (1923) is an example of a work from Central Europe that has picaresque elements. Further east, Kvachi Kvachantiradze is a novel written by Mikheil Javakhishvili in 1924. It is the story of a swindler, a Georgian Felix Krull, or perhaps a cynical Don Quixote, named Kvachi Kvachantiradze: womanizer, cheat, perpetrator of insurance fraud, bank-robber, associate of Rasputin, filmmaker, revolutionary, and pimp. The Twelve Chairs (1928) and its sequel, The Little Golden Calf (1931), by Ilya Ilf and Yevgeni Petrov (together known as Ilf and Petrov) became classics of twentieth-century Russian satire and the basis for numerous film adaptations.
Camilo José Cela's La familia de Pascual Duarte (1942), Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man (1952) and The Adventures of Augie March by Saul Bellow (1953) were also among mid-twentieth-century picaresque literature. John A. Lee's Shining with the Shiner (1944) tells amusing tales about New Zealand folk hero Ned Slattery (1840–1927) surviving by his wits and beating the 'Protestant work ethic'. So too is Thomas Mann's Confessions of Felix Krull (1954), which like many novels emphasizes the theme of a charmingly roguish ascent in the social order. Günter Grass's The Tin Drum (1959) is a German picaresque novel. John Barth's The Sot-Weed Factor (1960) is a picaresque novel that parodies the historical novel and uses black humor by intentionally incorrectly using literary devices.
Other 1960s and 1970s examples include Jerzy Kosinski's The Painted Bird (1965), Vladimir Voinovich's The Life and Extraordinary Adventures of Private Ivan Chonkin (1969), and Arto Paasilinna's The Year of the Hare (1975).
Examples from the 1980s include John Kennedy Toole's novel A Confederacy of Dunces, which was published in 1980, eleven years after the author's suicide, and won the 1981 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. It follows the adventures of Ignatius J. Reilly, a well-educated but lazy and obese slob, as he attempts to find stable employment in New Orleans and meets many colorful characters along the way.
Later examples include Umberto Eco's Baudolino (2000), and Aravind Adiga's The White Tiger (Booker Prize 2008). In contemporary Latin American narrative, there are Manuel Rojas' Hijo de ladrón (1951), Joaquín Edwards' El roto (1968), Elena Poniatowska's Hasta no verte Jesús mío (1969), Luis Zapata's Las aventuras, desventuras y sueños de Adonis García, el vampiro de la colonia Roma (1978) and José Baroja's Un hijo de perra (2017), among others.
The Golden Ass of Apuleius remains, according to many scholars such as F. W. Chandler, A. Marasso, T. Somerville and T., the primary influence for the modern Picaresque genre. Subsequently, after the revival in Spain, the genre flourished throughout Europe for more than 200 years for the first time since the Roman period. It continues to influence modern literature.
William S. Burroughs was a devoted fan of picaresque novels, and gave a series of lectures involving the topic in 1979 at Naropa University in Colorado. He says it is impossible to separate the anti-hero from the picaresque novel, that most of these are funny, and they all have protagonists who are outsiders by their nature. His list of picaresque novels includes Petronius' novel Satyricon (54–68 C.E.), The Unfortunate Traveller (1594) by Thomas Nashe, both Maiden Voyage (1943) and A Voice Through a Cloud (1950) by Denton Welch, Two Serious Ladies (1943) by Jane Bowles, Death on Credit (1936) by Louis-Ferdinand Céline, and even himself.
In 1987 an Italian comedy film written and directed by Mario Monicelli was released under the Italian title I picari. It was co-produced with Spain, where it was released as Los alegres pícaros, and internationally as The Rogues. Starring Vittorio Gassman, Nino Manfredi, Enrico Montesano, Giuliana De Sio and Giancarlo Giannini, the film is freely inspired by the Spanish novels Lazarillo de Tormes and Guzman de Alfarache.
- William Thrall and Addison Hibbard, A Handbook to Literature (New York, NY: The Odyssey Press, 1960).
- "picaresque," Cambridge Dictionary. Retrieved Jun 25, 2023.
- O.F. Best, "Para la etimología de pícaro," Nueva Revista de Filología Hispánica 17(3/4) (1963/1964): 352–357. Retrieved June 23, 2023.
- Felix Rodríguez González, Spanish Loanwords in the English Language: a tendency towards hegemony reversal (Leiden, N.L.: Walter de Gruyter, 1996, ISBN 978-3110148459), 36. Retrieved June 23, 2023.
- Daniel Eisenberg, "Does the Picaresque Novel Exist?" Kentucky Romance Quarterly (26) (1979): 203–219. Retrieved June 25, 2023.
- Seán Ó Neachtain, The History of Éamon O'Clery, trans. William Mohan (Inverin, IR: Clo Iar-Chonnacht, 2000, ISBN 978-1902420356), 6. Retrieved June 25, 2023.
- Harriet Turner and Adelaida López de Martínez, The Cambridge Companion to the Spanish Novel: From 1600 to the Present (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2003, ISBN 978-0521778152), 15. Retrieved June 23, 2023.
- Anne J. Cruz, Approaches to teaching Lazarillo de Tormes and the picaresque tradition (New York, NY: Modern Language Association of America, 2008, ISBN 978-1603290166), 19. Retrieved June 23, 2023. ("The pícaro's revolutionary stance, as an alienated outsider who nevertheless constructs his own self and his world.")
- Alfred J. MacAdam, Textual confrontations: comparative readings in Latin American literature (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1987, ISBN 9780226499901), 138. Retrieved June 23, 2023.
- Henry John Chaytor, La vida de Lazarillo de Tormes (The University Press, 1922), vii. Retrieved June 23, 2023.
- Lazarillo de Tormes, The life of Lazarillo de Tormes: his fortunes and adversities trans. William Stanley Merwin (New York, NY: Doubleday, 1962), 18. Retrieved June 23, 2023.
- René Martin, Le Satyricon: Pétrone (Jackson Heights, NY: Ellipsis Press, 1999, ISBN 978-2729878092), 105. Retrieved June 23, 2023.
- Fouad Al-Mounir, "The Muslim Heritage of Lazarillo de Tormes," The Maghreb Review 8(2) (1983): 16–17.
- James T. Monroe, The art of Badi'u 'l-Zaman al-Hamadhani as picaresque narrative (Beirut, LB: American University of Beirut, 1983).
- Abu-l-Tahir Muhammad ibn Yusuf al-Tamimi al-Saraqus'i ibn al-Astarkuwi, Al-Maqamat al-luzumiyah trans. James T. Monroe, (Leiden, N.L.: Brill, 2002, ISBN 978-9004492158).
- S. Rodzevich, "K istorii russkogo romantizma (Toward the history of Russian Romanticism)," Russky Filologichesky Vestnik (Russian Philological Notebook) (77) (1917): 194-237. (in Russian).
- David A. Boruchoff, "Free Will, the Picaresque, and the Exemplarity of Cervantes's Novelas ejemplares," Modern Language Notes (MLN) 124(2) (2009): 372–403.
- "Picaresque", Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved June 25, 2023.
- M. H. Abrams, A Glossary of Literary Terms 7th edition (New York, NY: Harcourt Brace, 1985, ISBN 0030549825), 191.
- For an overview of scholarship on the role of conversos in the development of the picaresque novel in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Spain, see Yael Halevi-Wise, "The Life and Times of the Pícaro Converso from Spain to Latin America," in Sephardism: Spanish Jewish History in the Modern Literary Imagination ed. Yael Halevi-Wise (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2011, ISBN 978-0804777469), 143–167.
- Hans Jakob Christoffel von Grimmelshausen, Der abentheurliche Simplicissimus (The adventurous Simplicissimus) (Nuremberg, DE: J. Fillion, 1669). Retrieved June 23, 2023.
- Merriam-Webster's Encyclopedia of Literature (Springfield, MA: Merriam-Webster, Incorporated, 1995, ISBN 978-0877790426), 3.
- Ronald Paulson, "Review of Rogue's Progress: Studies in the Picaresque Novel by Robert Alter," The Journal of English and Germanic Philology 64(2) (1965): 303.
- Michael Schmidt, The Novel: A Biography (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 2014, ISBN 978-0674724730).
- The title page of the first edition of Joseph Andrews lists its full title as: The History of the Adventures of Joseph Andrews, and of His Friend Mr. Abraham Adams. Written in Imitation of the Manner of Cervantes, Author of Don Quixote.
- Jurij Striedter, Der Schelmenroman in Russland: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte des Russischen Romans vor Gogol (Wiesbaden, DE: Harrossowitz Verlag, 1961).
- Erica Weitzman, "Imperium Stupidum: Švejk, Satire, Sabotage, Sabotage," Law and Literature 18(2) (2006): 117–148.
- Shelley Godsland, The neopicaresque: The picaresque myth in the twentieth-century novel in The Picaresque Novel in Western Literature: From the Sixteenth Century to the Neopicaresque ed. J.A. Garrido Ardila (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2015, ISBN 978-1107031654), 247–268.
- Mary E. Deters, A Study of the Picaresque Novel in Twentieth-Century America (Lacrosse, WI: University of Wisconsin, Lacrosse, 1969). Retrieved June 23, 2023.
- Mark Sanderson, "The picaresque, in detail," Telegraph November 4, 2003. Retrieved June 23, 2023.
- Teodosio Fernández, "Sobre la picaresca en Hispanoamérica," Edad de Oro (XX) (2001): 95–104.
- Joseph V. Ricapito, The Golden Ass of Apuleius and the Spanish Picaresque Novel (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1978, ISBN 978-0820402119).
- Roberto Chiti, Roberto Poppi, and Enrico Lancia, Dizionario del cinema italiano (Rome, IT: Gremese Editore, 1991, ISBN 978-8877424235).
- Leonardo De Franceschi, Lo sguardo eclettico: il cinema di Mario Monicelli (Venezia Mestre, IT: Marsilio, 2001, ISBN 978-8831777636).
ReferencesISBN links support NWE through referral fees
- Abrams, M.H. A Glossary of Literary Terms, 7th edition. New York, NY: Harcourt Brace, 1985. ISBN 0030549825
- Abu-l-Tahir Muhammad ibn Yusuf al-Tamimi al-Saraqus'i ibn al-Astarkuwi. Al-Maqamat al-luzumiyah. translated by James T. Monroe. Leiden, N.L.: Brill, 2002. ISBN 978-9004492158
- Al-Mounir, Fouad. "The Muslim Heritage of Lazarillo de Tormes," The Maghreb Review 8(2) (1983): 16–17.
- Best, O.F. "Para la etimología de pícaro," Nueva Revista de Filología Hispánica 17(3/4) (1963/1964): 352–357. Retrieved June 23, 2023.
- Boruchoff, David A. "Free Will, the Picaresque, and the Exemplarity of Cervantes's Novelas ejemplares," Modern Language Notes (MLN) 124(2) (2009): 372–403.
- Chaytor, Henry John. La vida de Lazarillo de Tormes. The University Press, 1922. Retrieved June 23, 2023.
- Chiti, Roberto, Roberto Poppi, and Enrico Lancia. Dizionario del cinema italiano. Rome, IT: Gremese Editore, 1991, ISBN 978-8877424235
- Cruz, Anne J. Approaches to teaching Lazarillo de Tormes and the picaresque tradition. New York, NY: Modern Language Association of America, 2008. ISBN 978-1603290166
- De Franceschi, Leonardo. Lo sguardo eclettico: il cinema di Mario Monicelli. Venezia Mestre, IT: Marsilio, 2001. ISBN 978-8831777636
- de Tormes, Lazarillo. The life of Lazarillo de Tormes: his fortunes and adversities translated by William Stanley Merwin. New York, NY: Doubleday, 1962. Retrieved June 23, 2023.
- Deters, Mary E. A Study of the Picaresque Novel in Twentieth-Century America. Lacrosse, WI: University of Wisconsin, Lacrosse, 1969). Retrieved June 23, 2023.
- Eisenberg, Daniel. "Does the Picaresque Novel Exist?" Kentucky Romance Quarterly (26) (1979): 203–219. Retrieved June 25, 2023.
- Fernández, Teodosio. "Sobre la picaresca en Hispanoamérica," Edad de Oro (XX) (2001): 95–104.
- Godsland, Shelley. The neopicaresque: The picaresque myth in the twentieth-century novel in The Picaresque Novel in Western Literature: From the Sixteenth Century to the Neopicaresque, edited by J.A. Garrido Ardila. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2015. ISBN 978-1107031654.
- Gonzalez, Felix Rodríguez. Spanish Loanwords in the English Language: a tendency towards hegemony reversal]. Leiden, N.L.: Walter de Gruyter, 1996. ISBN 978-3110148459
- Halevi-Wise, Yael. "The Life and Times of the Pícaro Converso from Spain to Latin America," in Sephardism: Spanish Jewish History in the Modern Literary Imagination, edited by Yael Halevi-Wise. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2011. ISBN 978-0804777469
- MacAdam, Alfred J. Textual Confrontations: Comparative readings in Latin American literature. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1987. ISBN 9780226499901
- Martin, René. Le Satyricon: Pétrone. Jackson Heights, NY Ellipsis Press, 1999. ISBN 978-2729878092
- Merriam-Webster's Encyclopedia of Literature. Springfield, MA: Merriam-Webster, Incorporated, 1995. ISBN 978-0877790426
- Monroe, James T. The art of Badi'u 'l-Zaman al-Hamadhani as picaresque narrative. Beirut, LB: American University of Beirut, 1983.
- Neachtain, Seán Ó. The History of Éamon O'Clery, translated by William Mohan. Inverin, IR: Clo Iar-Chonnacht, 2000. ISBN 978-1902420356
- Parker, Alexander Augustine. Literature and the Delinquent: The picaresque novel in Spain and Europe, 1599-1753. Edinburgh University Press, 1978. ISBN 0852243340
- Paulson, Ronald. "Review of Rogue's Progress: Studies in the Picaresque Novel by Robert Alter," The Journal of English and Germanic Philology 64(2) (1965).
- Ricapito, Joseph V. The Golden Ass of Apuleius and the Spanish Picaresque Novel. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1978. ISBN 978-0820402119
- Rodzevich, S. "K istorii russkogo romantizma (Toward the history of Russian Romanticism)," Russky Filologichesky Vestnik (Russian Philological Notebook) (77) (1917): 194-237.
- Sanderson, Mark. "The picaresque, in detail," Telegraph November 4, 2003. Retrieved June 23, 2023.
- Schmidt, Michael. The Novel: A Biography. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 2014. ISBN 978-0674724730
- Striedter, Jurij. Der Schelmenroman in Russland: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte des Russischen Romans vor Gogol. Wiesbaden, DE: Harrossowitz Verlag, 1961.
- Thrall, William, and Addison Hibbard. A Handbook to Literature. New York, NY: The Odyssey Press, 1960.
- Turner, Harriet, and Adelaida López de Martínez. The Cambridge Companion to the Spanish Novel: From 1600 to the Present. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2003. ISBN 978-0521778152
- von Grimmelshausen, Hans Jakob Christoffel. Der abentheurliche Simplicissimus (The adventurous Simplicissimus). Nuremberg, DE: J. Fillion, 1669. Retrieved June 23, 2023.
- Alter, Robert. Rogue's progress: studies in the picaresque novel Harvard University Press, 1964. Retrieved June 29, 2023.
- Garrido Ardila, Juan Antonio. El género picaresco en la crítica literaria. Madrid: Biblioteca Nueva, 2008. ASIN B00HCB8ERG
- Garrido Ardila, Juan Antonio. La novela picaresca en Europa, 1554-1753. Madrid: Visor libros, 2009. ISBN 978-8498951097
- Meyer-Minnemann, Klaus, and Sabine Schlickers (eds.). La novela picaresca: Concepto genérico y evolución del género (siglos XVI y XVII). Madrid, Iberoamericana, 2008. ISBN 978-8484894223
- Klein, Norman M., and Margo Bistis. The Imaginary 20th Century, Karlsruhe, ZKM: Center for Art and Media, 2016. ISBN 978-3928201483
All links retrieved June 25, 2023.
New World Encyclopedia writers and editors rewrote and completed the Wikipedia article in accordance with New World Encyclopedia standards. This article abides by terms of the Creative Commons CC-by-sa 3.0 License (CC-by-sa), which may be used and disseminated with proper attribution. Credit is due under the terms of this license that can reference both the New World Encyclopedia contributors and the selfless volunteer contributors of the Wikimedia Foundation. To cite this article click here for a list of acceptable citing formats.The history of earlier contributions by wikipedians is accessible to researchers here:
The history of this article since it was imported to New World Encyclopedia:
Note: Some restrictions may apply to use of individual images which are separately licensed.


Nuclear engineers harness the strongest forces of nature to tackle some of society’s biggest challenges. Our curriculum gives students depth and breadth to keep up with rapidly changing technology, and our close-knit learning community supports our students' success during their degree and as they launch their careers. The radiation sciences option provides a pathway for careers in medical applications of radiation.
Nuclear energy is the largest source of clean electricity in the United States and new technologies will allow its impact to grow as we decarbonize our economy. Most nuclear engineers design, build and operate nuclear power plants—today based on fission of uranium, but in the future, based on fusion of hydrogen. With no greenhouse gas emissions, nuclear energy is a reliable and predictable partner to other clean electricity, like wind, solar and hydro. Nuclear power sources have even more potential as new technologies and are deployed to remove carbon emissions from industrial processes like hydrogen production, water desalination, and steel manufacturing.
With radiation from man-made radioisotopes and particle accelerators, we can diagnose and treat cancer and other diseases. Nuclear engineers in the radiation sciences option design systems to generate radioactive tracers that can be injected into patients to pinpoint tumors, stress fractures, and cardiac diseases, while others build accelerators that deliver radiation precisely to diseased tissue while avoiding sensitive organs. Talk to your academic advisor about declaring the Radiation Sciences option. Students must have, and are expected to maintain, a 3.0 cumulative GPA.
Today’s rovers on Mars are powered by nuclear power sources and tomorrow’s spacecrafts will need nuclear power to transport humans far into space. Nuclear engineers build radioisotope thermal generators that provide nonstop power with no moving parts to deep-space probes and planetary vehicles, allowing missions that last for many years. Nuclear space propulsion cuts the travel time to other planets by months and surface power ensures reliable energy once the spacecraft lands.
Using advanced radiation detection systems, we can seek out explosives and nuclear weapons being smuggled in shipping containers. Nuclear engineers combine sources and detectors that use penetrating radiation that not only can see objects through thick shields, but can also determine the composition of the items inside. Additionally, they use machine learning and artificial intelligence to combine the signals from these systems for even more insight.
Our curriculum starts with an Introduction to Nuclear Engineering designed for first year students to learn about a variety of technical nuclear topics and also to engage with some societal challenges. Later on, the curriculum focuses on the deepest physics and math base in the College of Engineering to prepare our graduates for careers with constantly evolving technologies based on the newest scientific discoveries. We transition from these fundamentals to more applied topics in radiation transport, thermal systems, materials science, imaging and detectors, while students build skills in computational modeling and simulation. All of our students also take at least one course that offers an experience with the UW Nuclear Reactor. Students in the radiation sciences option will complete their degree with graduate courses from the internationally recognized Medical Physics program. This interdisciplinary degree program overlaps with other engineering disciplines, allowing our graduates to transition into a variety of industries and careers.
Small class sizes allow students and professors to get to know each other in a supportive learning community starting in their first year. Many students participate in undergraduate research across one of the biggest research portfolios in the College of Engineering. Faculty collaborations with companies in nuclear science and technology—both established and newcomers, as well as the country’s national laboratories—provide a professional network that helps students find internships and launch their careers.
NUCLEAR ENGINEERING PROGRAM EDUCATIONAL OBJECTIVES
The faculty recognize that our graduates will choose to use the knowledge and skills they have acquired during their undergraduate years to pursue a wide variety of career and life goals and we encourage this diversity of paths. Regarding the Nuclear Engineering program, we initially expect graduates will begin their careers in fields that utilize their knowledge, education and training in the interaction of radiation with matter as it applies to power generation, health and medical physics, security and safeguards and other engineering fields.
Whatever path our graduates choose to pursue, our educational objectives for the nuclear engineering program are to allow them to:
- Exhibit strong performance and continuous development in problem-solving, leadership, teamwork, and communication, initially applied to nuclear engineering, and demonstrating an unwavering commitment to excellence.
- Demonstrate continuing commitment to, and interest in, his or her training and education, as well as those of others.
- Transition seamlessly into a professional environment and make continuing, well-informed career choices.
- Contribute to their communities.
Admission to the College as a Freshman
Students applying to UW–Madison need to indicate an engineering major as their first choice in order to be considered for direct admission to the College of Engineering. Direct admission to a major means students will start in the program of their choice in the College of Engineering and will need to meet progression requirements at the end of the first year to guarantee advancement in that program.
Cross-Campus Transfer to Engineering
UW–Madison students in other schools and colleges on campus must meet minimum admission requirements for admission consideration to engineering degree granting classifications. Cross-campus admission is competitive and selective, and the grade point average expectations may increase as demand trends change. The student’s overall academic record at UW–Madison is also considered. Students apply to their intended engineering program by submitting the online application by stated deadlines for spring and fall. The College of Engineering offers an online information tutorial and drop-in advising for students to learn about the cross-campus transfer process.
Off-Campus Transfer to Engineering
With careful planning, students at other accredited institutions can transfer coursework that will apply toward engineering degree requirements at UW–Madison. Off-campus transfer applicants are considered for direct admission to the College of Engineering by applying to the Office of Admissions with an engineering major listed as their first choice. Those who are admitted to their intended engineering program must meet progression requirements at the point of transfer or within their first two semesters at UW–Madison to guarantee advancement in that program. A minimum of 30 credits in residence in the College of Engineering is required after transferring, and all students must meet all requirements for their major in the college. Transfer admission to the College of Engineering is competitive and selective, and students who have exceeded the 80 credit limit at the time of application are not eligible to apply.
The College of Engineering has dual degree programs with select four-year UW System campuses. Eligible dual degree applicants are not subject to the 80 credit limit.
Off-campus transfer students are encouraged to discuss their interests, academic background, and admission options with the Transfer Coordinator in the College of Engineering: email@example.com or 608-262-2473.
Second Bachelor's Degree
The College of Engineering does not accept second undergraduate degree applications. Second degree students might explore the Biological Systems Engineering program at UW–Madison, an undergraduate engineering degree elsewhere, or a graduate program in the College of Engineering.
Radiation Sciences Declaration
Talk to your academic advisor about declaring the Radiation Sciences option. Students must have and are expected to maintain a 3.0 cumulative GPA.
University General Education Requirements
All undergraduate students at the University of Wisconsin–Madison are required to fulfill a minimum set of common university general education requirements to ensure that every graduate acquires the essential core of an undergraduate education. This core establishes a foundation for living a productive life, being a citizen of the world, appreciating aesthetic values, and engaging in lifelong learning in a continually changing world. Various schools and colleges will have requirements in addition to the requirements listed below. Consult your advisor for assistance, as needed. For additional information, see the university Undergraduate General Education Requirements section of the Guide.
|General Education|| |
* The mortarboard symbol appears before the title of any course that fulfills one of the Communication Part A or Part B, Ethnic Studies, or Quantitative Reasoning Part A or Part B requirements.
The nuclear engineering curriculum emphasizes nuclear power and is appropriate for students seeking careers in the nuclear power industry.
There is also a Radiation Sciences option available for students interested in medical and other non-power applications.
The following curriculum applies to students who entered the program starting in Fall 2020.
Summary of Requirements
|Mathematics and Statistics||22|
|Nuclear Engineering Core||28|
|Nuclear Engineering Electives||8|
|Introduction to Engineering||3|
Mathematics and Statistics
|MATH 221||Calculus and Analytic Geometry 1||5|
|or MATH 217||Calculus with Algebra and Trigonometry II|
|or MATH 275||Topics in Calculus I|
|MATH 222||Calculus and Analytic Geometry 2||4|
|or MATH 276||Topics in Calculus II|
|MATH 234||Calculus--Functions of Several Variables||4|
|MATH 320||Linear Algebra and Differential Equations||3|
|MATH 321||Applied Mathematical Analysis||3|
|STAT 324||Introductory Applied Statistics for Engineers||3|
|Select one of the following:||5-9|
|Advanced General Chemistry|
| General Chemistry I|
and General Chemistry II
|PHYSICS 202||General Physics||5|
|or PHYSICS 208||General Physics|
|PHYSICS 241||Introduction to Modern Physics||3|
|or PHYSICS 205||Modern Physics for Engineers|
|E M A 201||Statics||3|
|E M A 202||Dynamics||3|
|or M E 240||Dynamics|
|E M A 303||Mechanics of Materials||3|
|or M E 306||Mechanics of Materials|
|E P 271||Engineering Problem Solving I||3-4|
|or COMP SCI 200||Programming I|
|or COMP SCI 220||Data Science Programming I|
|or COMP SCI 310||Problem Solving Using Computers|
|M S & E 350||Introduction to Materials Science||3|
|M E 231||Geometric Modeling for Design and Manufacturing||3|
|M E 361||Thermodynamics||3|
|Select one of the following:||4-6|
|Introductory Transport Phenomena|
| Fluid Dynamics|
and Elementary Heat Transfer
|E C E 376||Electrical and Electronic Circuits 1||3|
|Computing Elective (select one of the following):||3|
|Introduction to Numerical Methods|
|Intermediate Problem Solving for Engineers|
|Introduction to Scientific Computing for Engineering Physics|
Nuclear Engineering Core
|N E 305||Fundamentals of Nuclear Engineering||3|
|N E 405||Nuclear Reactor Theory||3|
|N E 408||Ionizing Radiation||3|
|N E 411||Nuclear Reactor Engineering||3|
|N E 412||Nuclear Reactor Design||5|
|N E/M S & E 423||Nuclear Engineering Materials||3|
|N E 424||Nuclear Materials Laboratory||1|
|N E 427||Nuclear Instrumentation Laboratory||2|
|N E 428||Nuclear Reactor Laboratory||2|
|N E 571||Economic and Environmental Aspects of Nuclear Energy||3|
Nuclear Engineering Electives
|Nuclear Engineering Electives||6|
Select credits from Nuclear Engineering Electives Course List below
|Technical Electives (not to be confused with Nuclear Engineering Electives) choose 2 credits from:||2|
|Cooperative Education Program (no more than 3 credits)|
Courses numbered 300+ in the CoE except for E P D/INTEREGR
Courses numbered 300+ in MATH, PHYSICS, COMP SCI, STAT (except STAT 301), ASTRON, MED PHYS, and CHEM departments
Students may also propose any class that they feel will benefit their education path with pre-requisite of two physics or calculus classes. For these courses the advisor will review the request and if approved, recommend a DARS substitution.
Nuclear Engineering Electives Course List 1
|N E 234||Principles and Practice of Nuclear Reactor Operations||4|
|N E 406||Nuclear Reactor Analysis||3|
|N E/M S & E 433||Principles of Corrosion||3|
|N E/MED PHYS 506||Monte Carlo Radiation Transport||3|
|M E/N E 520||Two-Phase Flow and Heat Transfer||3|
|N E/E C E/PHYSICS 525||Introduction to Plasmas||3|
|N E 536||Feasibility St of Power from Controlled Thermonuclear Fusion||3|
|N E 541||Radiation Damage in Metals||3|
|N E 545||Materials Degradation in Advanced Nuclear Reactor Environments||3|
|N E 550||Advanced Nuclear Power Engineering||3|
|N E 555||Nuclear Reactor Dynamics||3|
|N E/M E 565||Power Plant Technology||3|
|N E/MED PHYS 569||Health Physics and Biological Effects||3-4|
|N E/I SY E 574||Methods for Probabilistic Risk Analysis of Nuclear Power Plants||3|
|N E 602||Special Topics in Reactor Engineering||3|
Students are encouraged to access the online N E future course offering grid to plan their future course schedules and to confirm the offering of a course in the table.
Courses meeting the Nuclear Engineering Electives requirement are all N E courses numbered above 200 that are not part of the required curriculum. No more than 3 credits of N E 699 Advanced Independent Study may be used to meet this requirement. (Refer to the NE handbook under Degree Information on the NEEP department website).
Introduction to Engineering
|N E 231||Introduction to Nuclear Engineering||3|
|ENGL 100||Introduction to College Composition||3|
|or LSC 100||Science and Storytelling|
|or COM ARTS 100||Introduction to Speech Composition|
|or ESL 118||Academic Writing II|
|E P D 275||Technical Presentations||2|
|INTEREGR 397||Engineering Communication||3|
Liberal Studies Electives
|College of Engineering Liberal Studies Requirements|
|Complete Requirements 1||16|
Students must take 16 credits that carry H, S, L, or Z breadth designators. These credits must fulfill the following subrequirements:
- A minimum of two courses from the same subject area (the description before the course number). At least one of these two courses must be designated as above the elementary level (I, A, or D) in the course listing.
- A minimum of 6 credits designated as humanities (H, L, or Z in the course listing), and an additional minimum of 3 credits designated as social science (S or Z in the course listing). Foreign language courses count as H credits. Retroactive credits for language courses may not be used to meet the Liberal Studies credit requirement (they can be used for subrequirement 1 above).
- At least 3 credits in courses designated as ethnic studies (lower case “e” in the course listing). These courses may help satisfy subrequirements 1 and 2 above, but they only count once toward the total required. Note: Some courses may have “e” designation but not have H, S, L, or Z designation; these courses do not count toward the Liberal Studies requirement.
For information on credit load, adding or dropping courses, course substitutions, pass/fail, auditing courses, dean's honor list, repeating courses, probation, and graduation, see the College of Engineering Official Regulations.
Talk to your academic advisor about declaring the Radiation Sciences option. Students must have and are expected to maintain a 3.0 cumulative GPA.
Honors in Undergraduate Research Program
Qualified undergraduates may earn an Honor in Research designation on their transcript and diploma by completing 8 credits of undergraduate honors research, including a senior thesis. Further information is available in the department office.
University Degree Requirements
|Total Degree||To receive a bachelor's degree from UW–Madison, students must earn a minimum of 120 degree credits. The requirements for some programs may exceed 120 degree credits. Students should consult with their college or department advisor for information on specific credit requirements.|
|Residency||Degree candidates are required to earn a minimum of 30 credits in residence at UW–Madison. "In residence" means on the UW–Madison campus with an undergraduate degree classification. “In residence” credit also includes UW–Madison courses offered in distance or online formats and credits earned in UW–Madison Study Abroad/Study Away programs.|
|Quality of Work||Undergraduate students must maintain the minimum grade point average specified by the school, college, or academic program to remain in good academic standing. Students whose academic performance drops below these minimum thresholds will be placed on academic probation.|
- an ability to identify, formulate, and solve complex engineering problems by applying principles of engineering, science, and mathematics
- an ability to apply engineering design to produce solutions that meet specified needs with consideration of public health, safety, and welfare, as well as global, cultural, social, environmental, and economic factors
- an ability to communicate effectively with a range of audiences
- an ability to recognize ethical and professional responsibilities in engineering situations and make informed judgments, which must consider the impact of engineering solutions in global, economic, environmental, and societal contexts
- an ability to function effectively on a team whose members together provide leadership, create a collaborative and inclusive environment, establish goals, plan tasks, and meet objectives
- an ability to develop and conduct appropriate experimentation, analyze and interpret data, and use engineering judgment to draw conclusions
- an ability to acquire and apply new knowledge as needed, using appropriate learning strategies.
SAMPLE FOUR-YEAR PLAN
|CHEM 1091||5||E M A 2013||3|
|MATH 221||5||MATH 222||4|
|Communication A||3||M E 231||3|
|Liberal Studies Elective||3||M S & E 350||3|
|N E 231||3|
|MATH 234||4||MATH 320||3|
|PHYSICS 202||5||PHYSICS 241 or 205||3|
|E M A 2024||3||M E 361||3|
|E P 271 or COMP SCI 310||3||E M A 3034||3|
|E P D 275 or COM ARTS 105||2||N E 424||1|
|Liberal Studies Elective||3|
|N E 305||3||N E 405||3|
|MATH 321||3||N E 408||3|
|STAT 3245||3||CBE 3206||4|
|Technical Elective||2||Computing Elective||3|
|Liberal Studies Elective||4||E C E 376||3|
|N E 411||3||N E 412||5|
|N E 427||2||N E 428||2|
|N E/M S & E 423||3||N E 571||3|
|Nuclear Engineering Elective||3||Nuclear Engineering Elective||3|
|Liberal Studies Elective||3||Liberal Studies Elective||3|
|Total Credits 129|
It is recommended that students take CHEM 109 Advanced General Chemistry for 5 credits. However, depending on their high school chemistry experience, students may substitute CHEM 103 General Chemistry I and CHEM 104 General Chemistry II for a total of 9 credits. Three credits of CHEM 103/CHEM 104 may be counted towards Technical Electives credits.
Students who were not able to take N E 231 Introduction to Nuclear Engineering as freshmen may, with the approval of their advisor, substitute a course offered in the College of Engineering or in the Departments of Chemistry, Computer Sciences, Mathematics, and Physics.
Each College of Engineering program has academic advisors dedicated to serving its students. Program advisors can help current College of Engineering students with questions about accessing courses, navigating degree requirements, resolving academic issues and more. Students can find their assigned advisor on the homepage of their student center.
Continuing students who have fulfilled the progression requirements will also be assigned a Nuclear Engineering faculty advisor. Before enrolling in courses each semester, students must meet with their faculty advisor for assistance in planning courses and reviewing degree requirements. Faculty advisors are a valuable resource, as they can provide students with in-depth guidance on course content, internship and job opportunities, research, and more.
Engineering Career Services
Engineering Career Services (ECS) assists students in identifying pre-professional work-based learning experiences such as co-ops and summer internships, considering and applying to graduate or professional school, and finding full-time professional employment during their graduation year.
ECS offers two major career fairs per year, assists with resume writing and interviewing skills, hosts workshops on the job search, and meets one-on-one with students to discuss offer negotiations.
Students are encouraged to utilize the ECS office early in their academic careers. For comprehensive information on ECS programs and workshops, see the ECS website or call 608-262-3471.
Paul Wilson (Chair)
Juliana Pacheco Duarte
Facilities available for instruction and research include:
Nuclear Reactor Laboratory
Nuclear Instrumentation Laboratory
Fluid Mechanics and Heat Transfer Laboratories
Plasma Physics Laboratories
Instructional Computing Labs (in Computer Aided Engineering)
The Department of Nuclear Engineering & Engineering Physics & the College of Engineering have several types of scholarships available to incoming and current engineering students. Students should explore the Wisconsin Scholarship Hub (WiSH), where you can apply to and find specific information on scholarships at UW-Madison. You can use WiSH to find engineering scholarships available through the College of Engineering; the Inclusion, Equity, and Diversity in Engineering Student Center; the Nuclear Engineering & Engineering Physics Department; and other UW and external organizations. (Please note: students must be currently enrolled in, or have applied to, the College of Engineering to be considered for engineering scholarships.) To be matched with these available scholarship funds an application is required and the system is typically open to students in the spring of each year. Questions on the process can be directed to: firstname.lastname@example.org. Additional financial assistance may be awarded through the Office of Student Financial Aid (333 E. Campus Mall RM 9701, 262-3060).
Accredited by the Engineering Accreditation Commission of ABET, http://www.abet.org.
Note: Undergraduate Program Educational Objectives and Student Outcomes are made publicly available at the Departmental website. (In this Guide, the program's Student Outcomes are designated by our campus as "Learning Outcomes.")