BS/MS Option in Mechanical Engineering

Mechanical Engineering’s BS/MS option allows outstanding mechanical engineering undergraduates to complete both degrees with 9 fewer credits than if taken separately. Students will be selected during the spring semester of their junior year. Students who wish to enroll in the program will indicate their intention to do so by filing an application for graduate school by May 1; they will not be required to take the GRE or to submit recommendation letters.

The Graduate Committee will use the following nominal criteria to select candidates.

GPA of 3.0 or higher after the completion of 75-credit hours or more.
Strong recommendations from faculty.

Requirements

Undergraduate degree requirements are fulfilled as they are in the BS program, except that the BS/MS student will take three graduate courses for technical electives, as is already allowed for our undergraduates. (If a student takes a graduate course to also be counted as an undergraduate technical elective and receives a grade less than a B-, the student must take an additional graduate course in order to satisfy the minimum requirements.) A savings in credits results because the three graduate courses count toward both degrees simultaneously, resulting in a reduction in credits from 153 (degrees separately acquired) to 144 (combined BS/MS program).

Thesis Option: The student will fulfill the requirements for the MS degree exactly as they are in the existing thesis option MS program. Students will also be required to take MNE 570, Reading and Research, over the summer at the end of their senior year as preparation for completing their thesis in the spring of the following year.

Coursework Option: The student will fulfill the requirements for the MS degree exactly as they are in the existing coursework option MS program.