Five-Year Bs/Ms Degree Programs

Programs

The five-year BS/MS degree programs currently offered by the College of Engineering are the following:

Admission:

  • Students will be considered for admission during or after their freshman year. There are no special admission requirements for freshmen.  For admissions at the start of the sophomore year, students with a QPA of at least 3.400/4.000 can petition their respective department for admission into the program.  Admission is also possible at a later academic date, but before the start of the junior (fourth) year, and the same admission requirement as described here applies.

Continuation in the Program:

  • To remain in the program, students must maintain the minimum QPA requirement of 3.400 through the end of their junior year.  They must also maintain at least a B average in all the graduate courses they take through the end of the senior (fifth) year. 
  • Students matriculated into a combined BS/MS program will be moved to a new combined unit on Registrar’s system to facilitate their enrollment in both undergraduate and graduate classes, as well as billing.
  • The program of study may be modified to suit each student’s situation such as taking an evening course while on co-op, omitting co-op period, etc.
  • When students start taking graduate courses, a graduate file is established for each student in the Graduate School of Engineering.
  • The graduate courses to be taken in the program must be approved by the departmental Graduate Program Advisor and the Director of the Graduate School of Engineering for each student in advance before they start taking graduate level courses.  Two graduate courses in the senior year can be replaced by thesis for those students who wish to do so.

Tuition:

  • Students will pay the regular undergraduate tuition for the first eight semesters followed by graduate tuition for each course in the ninth semester. This ensures that students in this joint program are eligible for the same level of federal, state and institutional support as undergraduates in non-combine programs through the end of the eighth semester.
  • After the completion of the junior year requirements, they also become eligible for Stipended Research Assistantship (GRA) positions, allowing them to do research and to take coursework while being paid a graduate stipend. Students with a GRA appointment will not be eligible for any other financial support in their senior year.

Degree Completion:

  • In this program, students earn both BS and MS degrees in five years and at the same time gain extensive job experience through a twelve-month Cooperative Education (Co-op) Program. Students receive both degrees at the same commencement the end of the spring semester of their year-five studies.

Opt-out Option:

  • A student who either desires to leave or is denied continuation in the program will nonetheless be able to receive a BS degree at the end of the fall semester of the senior year.  In that case, the graduate courses taken through the end of the senior year fall semester are counted as technical electives towards the BS degree or they can be replaced by appropriate undergraduate technical electives by petitioning to the department.  Graduate course credits used for the undergraduate degree cannot be used toward the graduate degree at a later date.
ACCREDITATION OF BS DEGREE

With the graduated courses (maximum of 16 semester hours) counted as technical electives, the BS program is exactly the same as the regular BS program in engineering and there is no need for an additional accreditation.