Specific Requirements for the Ph.D. Degree
Students are required to maintain a cumulative 3.3 GPA in all their coursework.
Coursework
As a minimum, every Ph.D. Program of Study (POS) in MSE must include:
- 72 total credits
- A minimum of 27 coursework credits, including:
- course credits necessary to satisfy the MSE core requirements
- non-MSE credits, approved by the POS committee for graduate credit.
- 1 credit of GR ST 565: Professional Practice: Carrying Responsible Research course
- 5 credits of MSE 601 (SEMINAR) in MSE seminar
- Ph.D. degree students will be required to have 5 credits of MSE 601 (SEMINAR) to receive the Ph.D. degree. Students earn 1 credit for each semester of attendance at the seminars. Students with special circumstances that prevent them from attending a sufficient number of semesters of seminars to meet the requirement may petition the Graduate Studies Committee to have this rule waived.
- A minimum of 36 credits of MSE 699 (research – graded as A,B,C,D,F)
Note: Eligibility for the Ph.D. Preliminary Examination requires a minimum grade point average of 3.30 for all MSE graduate coursework and for all MSE 699 credits (computed separately).
The Ph.D. Core Requirement
As a part of the coursework requirements, Ph.D. students are required to complete an 15-credit core. To satisfy the core requirement, a Ph.D. student must:
- complete MSE 510, MSE 520, MSE 530, and MSE 540 (earning a grade of “B” (not B-) or better in each course; transfer credits are not allowed for these courses
- complete one additional course to the 4 core courses from the following list: MSE 521, MSE 564, MSE 569, MSE 630, MSE 651, MSE 652x, or EM 516.