Mechanical Engineering Major, PhD

Requirements
All students must complete a minimum of 72 semester hours beyond the bachelor’s degree, exclusive of credit for the master’s thesis. These shall include a minimum of 24 hours in Doctoral Research and Dissertation and a minimum of 48 semester hours in other courses.

In mechanical engineering, aerospace engineering, or biomedical engineering, the courses must include the following.

• A minimum of 12 semester hours of graduate credit in mathematics courses numbered 400 or above with a minimum of 6 hours numbered 500 or above.
   
• A minimum of 24 semester hours in the department in courses numbered 500 and above, with at least 12 of these hours in the major. A minimum of 9 semester hours of courses is required at the 600 level. These are exclusive of thesis, problems, or dissertation credit. The student’s advisory committee can approve a student’s petition to replace one 600-level course with one or more 500- level course(s) that are more appropriate.

In engineering science, the courses must include the following.

• A minimum of 24 semester hours in engineering graduate courses, exclusive of thesis and dissertation credit. These courses will normally be numbered 500 and above, with at least 9 semester hours of 600-level courses, which constitute one or two areas of concentration selected by the student. The number of courses in this group to be taken will depend on the program selected by the student and the approval of his/her advisory committee.
   
• A minimum of 12 semester hours in mathematics or computer science in courses numbered 400 and above, exclusive of a first course in ordinary differential equations.

Additional requirements for all students include the following.

• Registration and participation in the graduate seminar in the major program.
   
• Meet all departmental examination requirements, which include passing a written and oral comprehensive examination.
   
• Presentation of a dissertation proposal to the student’s advisory committee and approval of that proposal by that committee.
   
• Successful defense of the dissertation.