Civil Engineering (MS)

Admission Standards

The admission standards for the Master of Science program in Civil Engineering are as follows:

  1. All admission applications for the program shall include:
    1. A completed graduate application for the Graduate School,
    2. An application fee,
    3. At least two letters of recommendation, and
    4. Official transcript(s) for all previous post-secondary coursework.  All transcripts not in English must be certified as authentic and translated verbatim into English.
  2. The minimum requirement for admission is the baccalaureate degree or its equivalent from an accredited institution.
  3. The successful applicant will typically have an undergraduate grade point average of 2.75 or above (on a 4.00 scale).
  4. International students whose primary language is not English must show English language proficiency by either TOEFL/IELTS/Duolingo score or demonstration of a degree awarded from an acceptable English language institution.  The successful applicant will typically have a TOEFL score of 79 or higher or overall IELTS score of 6.5 or higher or a Duolingo score of 105 or higher.

Program Requirements

Graduate Work

Remedial work may be specified for those applicants who, in the opinion of the faculty, do not have a sufficient background. The MS program has four different focus areas available: Structural Engineering, Geotechnical Engineering, Transportation Engineering, and Water Resources.

The minimum curricular requirements for the master's degree program are:

Core Courses
CEE 681Green Engineering & Sustainable Design3
Three courses from a selected focus area 19
Technical Electives 2,312
Select one of the following: 6
Thesis Option
CEE 690
Master of Science Thesis in Civil Engineering 4
Non-Thesis Option
Technical Electives 2,3
Minimum Total Hours30

 The Master of Science degree must be completed with a 3.00 GPA or better for all graduate courses used to satisfy degree requirements.  Additionally, the MS degree must be completed with a 3.00 GPA or better for all academic work attempted in graduate studies.   

1

See Focus Area options below with the courses included in each area.

2

Electives must be chosen so that at least one-half of the credits counted toward the degree, exclusive of thesis, are 600-level; at least fifteen (15) credit hours of coursework must be in CEE.

3

Technical Electives can be CEE or non-CEE courses. Technical Electives must be approved by the department.  Non-CEE Technical Electives cannot be more than six (6) credit hours.

4

For the thesis option, a student is required to select both an approved MS thesis topic and the director and members of the thesis committee during the first term of graduate study. The thesis director must give approval for enrollment in CEE 690.

Focus Areas 

Structural Engineering

CEE 522Fundamentals of Prestressed Concrete3
CEE 523Timber Design3
CEE 620Advanced Mechanics of Solids3
CEE 621Finite Element Analysis for Structural Engineers3
CEE 626Masonry Design3

 Geotechnical Engineering

CEE 553Advanced Foundation Design3
CEE 650Measurement of Soil Properties3
CEE 652Advanced Earth Pressure and Retaining Structures3
CEE 656Geotechnical Earthquake Engineering3

Transportation Engineering

CEE 560Traffic Engineering3
CEE 562Geometric Design of Highways3
CEE 660Transportation Planning and Urban Development3
CEE 664Fundamentals of Intelligent Transportation Systems3

Water Resources

CEE 573Groundwater Hydrology3
CEE 673Advanced Hydrology3
CEE 676Sediment Transport and River Mechanics3
CEE 694Special Topics in Civil Engineering (Wetland Design)1-6