Students must fulfill the coursework requirements for the nuclear engineering and engineering physics M.S. degree whether receiving the M.S. degree or going directly to the PhD. They must complete an additional 9 credits of technical coursework at the graduate level, beyond the coursework requirement for the MS. Candidates must take three 700-level courses; must satisfy the Ph.D. technical minor requirement; and must satisfy the PhD non-technical minor requirement.
The candidate is also required to complete, as a graduate student, one course at the 400 level or above in each of the following Areas: fission reactors; plasma physics and fusion; materials; engineering mathematics and computation (see Area Coursework Examples below).
M.S. Coursework Requirements
The following courses, or courses with similar material content, must be taken prior to or during the course of study: N E 427 Nuclear Instrumentation Laboratory; N E 428 Nuclear Reactor Laboratory or N E 526 Laboratory Course in Plasmas; N E 408 Ionizing Radiation or N E/MED PHYS 569 Health Physics and Biological Effects.
Thesis track1: maximum of 12 credits for thesis; at least 8 credits of N E courses 400 level or above; remaining credits (also 400 level or above) must be in appropriate technical areas2; at least 9 credits must be 500 level and above; up to 3 credits can be seminar credits.
Non-Thesis track1: at least 15 credits of N E courses at the 400 level or above; remaining 15 credits (also 400 level or above) must be in appropriate technical areas2; at least 12 credits must be at the 500 level or above; up to 3 credits can be seminar credits.
For both the thesis and non-thesis options, only one course (maximum of 3 credits) of independent study (N E 699 Advanced Independent Study, N E 999 Advanced Independent Study) is allowed.
Area Coursework Examples
These courses are examples that would meet the requirement and are not meant to be a restricted list of possible courses. The candidate is required to complete one course in each of the following areas:
Non-Technical Minor Requirements
Ph.D. candidates must complete one of the following four study options prior to receiving dissertator status. As this is a formal Department requirement, the student should select a Non-Technical Minor early in the program, and must complete it to achieve dissertator status (see below). The Non-Technical Minor must be planned with the help of the candidate’s advisor and must be approved by the Department NonTechnical Minor Advisor except for Study Option IV which must be approved by the Department faculty. A Non-Technical Minor Approval Form is available from the Graduate Student Services Office, 3182 Mechanical Engineering, and must be filed prior to submission of the doctoral plan form. Courses below the 400 level may be used as a part of the Non-Technical Minor.
Study Option I: Technology-Society Interaction Coursework. This option is intended to increase the student’s awareness of the possible effects of technology on society and of the professional responsibilities of engineers and scientists in understanding such side effects. These effects could, for example, involve the influence of engineering on advancement of human welfare, on the distribution of wealth in society, or on environmental and ecological systems.
Suggested courses for fulfilling Option I include:
Study Option II: Humanistic Society Studies Coursework. The basic objectives of this option are to help prepare the student to bridge the gap between C.P. Snow’s "Two Cultures." Snow’s 1959 lecture thesis was that the breakdown of communication between the "two cultures" of modern society – the sciences and the humanities – was a major hindrance to solving the world’s problems. Study might be designed to give a greater appreciation of the arts such as the classics, music, or painting, or it might be designed, for example, as preparation for translating technical information to the non-technical public.
Suggested areas of study to fulfill Option II include Anthropology, Area Studies, Art, Art History, Classics, Comparative Literature, Contemporary Trends, English (literature), Foreign Languages (literature), Social Work, Sociology, and Speech. Under either Option I or II, the student must take 6 credits of coursework. The courses must be approved by the student’s advisor and the non-technical minor advisor, and the 6 credits should be concentrated in one topical area. Grades in these courses need not meet the Departmental Grade Policy. However, note that all grades in 300 level or above courses (including grades for Non-Technical Minor courses) are calculated in the Graduate School minimum 3.0 graduation requirement.
Study Option III: Foreign Culture Coursework. This option is intended for the student who desires to live and work in a foreign nation or work with people of a foreign culture. Examples include studies of the history of a foreign nation, of the political stability of a region of the world, of the culture of a particular group within a nation, or of the spoken language of a foreign nation. For Option III the student must take six credits of courses under all of the same conditions and requirements as for Option I and II unless choosing language study. For the latter case, the student must attain a grade of C or better in all courses. If the student has previous knowledge of a language, it is required that either courses beyond the introductory level will be elected or that another language will be elected.
Study Option IV: Technology-Society Interactions Experience. There are many possible technology-society interactions that might be more educational and meaningful for the student as an actual experience than coursework. For example, the student might run for and be elected to a position of alderperson in the city government. Consequently, this option allows the student to pursue a particular aspect of the interaction using his own time and resources.
Study Option IV activity must be planned with the student’s advisor and be approved by the faculty. The effort required should be equivalent to 6 credits of coursework. Upon completion of this program, the student will prepare a written or oral report.
Note: Foreign students from countries in which English is not the native tongue have inherently fulfilled these non-technical study goals and are exempt from these formal requirements.