This text presents an introduction to the finite element method including theory, coding, and applications. The theory is presented without recourse to any specific discipline, and the applications span a broad range of engineering problems. The codes are written in MATLAB script in such a way that they are easily translated to other computer languages such as FORTRAN. All codes given in the text are available for downloading from the text′s Web page, along with data files for running the test problems shown in the text. All codes can be run on the student version of MATLAB (not included).