Degree Requirements

Degree Requirements

81 graduate credit hours are required in total for the Ph. D. program in Engineering & Applied Science, of which 30 hours in dissertation research are required and aa minimum of 51 semester credit hours of graduate course work in an approved program beyond the Bachelor's degree.  Up to 30 graduate credit hours from a Master's degree program, if the area of the Master's degree is relevant to the concentration, may be applied towards the satisfaction of credit hours for the Ph.D.. A doctoral dissertation based on the results of original research under the guidance of a faculty committee and defended in a public examination is required for the completion of the doctoral program. Students may choose a concentration from Civil and Environmental Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Engineering Management, Mechanical Engineering, Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering, Computer Science, Earth and Environmental Sciences, Mathematics, or Physics.

The student's dissertation advisory committee will consist of at least five members, of which no more than three can be from the major department, and one must be from the other college. Program qualification, in the form of a Qualifying Examination, is administered by the department of the major professor(s). It is based on material in a typical departmentalized master's degree program, or equivalent. Courses are chosen with the consent of the dissertation advisory committee. The committee shall consider the interdisciplinary nature of the program when it approves the courses. A minimum of nine credits (three courses) must be taken in each college... A General (comprehensive) Examination will be administered by the dissertation advisory committee. The examination will be based on material in the student's program of study. After passing the General Examination the Ph.D. student is expected to write a dissertation prospectus and defend it before the dissertation advisory committee. After a successful defense and committee approval of the prospectus, the student may pursue research leading to the dissertation. The dissertation should reflect the interdisciplinary nature of the program. There must be a final public defense of the dissertation administered by the dissertation advisory committee.