“There was a pent-up demand for this,” said Professor Joost J. Vlassak, who serves as the director of undergraduate studies for the new mechanical engineering concentration.

Vlassak said that the new concentrations maintain Harvard’s emphasis on a liberal arts education by providing students with flexibility in course selection.

Christopher J. Lombardo, assistant director for undergraduate studies in engineering sciences, also said that the new concentrations are not pre-professional, pointing out that many engineering concentrators head to careers in finance, policy, and other fields.

“Engineering is a way to teach analysis and quantitative skills,” he said. “We teach the same skills and higher reasoning that [other departments do] but in a quantitative way.”

Many engineering concentrators say that these new concentrations do not mark a movement in a more pre-professional direction.

“Engineering at Harvard I would not call pre-professional,” said electrical engineering concentrator Scott E. Crouch ’13. According to Crouch, “just like any discipline here,” engineering incorporates liberal arts thinking and employs an “appropriate mix of theory and practice.”

—Staff writer Nikita Kansra can be reached at nkansra01@college.harvard.edu.

—Staff writer Sabrina A. Mohamed can be reached at smohamed@college.harvard.edu.