Civil Engineering, BSCE/MSE

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The Department of Mechanical and Civil Engineering and the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, both located in the School of Engineering, offer a combined BSCE/MSE degree program for Civil Engineering, so that students in the BSCE program will be eligible to enter the MSE (Interdisciplinary Engineering) program with a concentration in Civil Engineering, to complete both degrees with 9 overlapping graduate credits. The program is intended to provide outstanding undergraduate students with the option of graduate study on an accelerated basis.

Admission Requirements

Students will be admitted to the School of Engineering under the current guidelines for admitting BSCE students. All incoming students will be informed of the option for the combined degree program. Only students with a 3.25/4.0 GPA or above at the start of their junior year will be accepted into the MSE program.

Students would be expected to apply for the graduate program (MSE) at the end of their junior year, and would be expected to complete the application process for the MSE degree and the GS Form 27, and would be admitted to the graduate program as a second classification at the start of year 4 (senior year). The students would have a primary classification of Undergrad and a secondary classification of graduate. Once the student has completed the Bachelor’s degree requirements, the graduate admission would become a first priority (final year of the 5 year combined degree program) upon award of the undergraduate degree. The Bachelor’s degree is awarded upon completion of those degree requirements, and then the MSE is awarded upon the completion of the graduate degree requirements.

Degree Requirements

During the first year of the dual-degree program (Senior year, after admission to the combined degree program), students’ credit-hour loads will be identical to the load carried by students seeking just the corresponding regular undergraduate degree. This is possible because students will use required electives (9 credit hours in the BSCE plan of study) of their undergraduate program in order to satisfy 9 of the required 30 credit hours of the graduate degree. During their fifth year students will then typically take 4 courses totaling 12 credit hours in the fall semester, plus another 3 courses (9 credit hours) in their final spring. This represents a slightly elevated course load (of one additional course in each of the two final semesters) compared to what is typical for MS degree graduate students.