Effective Fall 2019, the Department of Mechanical and Energy Engineering at IUPUI has started a five-year combined degree program in which the students receive both BS in Energy Engineering and MS degrees in Mechanical Engineering. Through a seamless transition from the BSEEN to the MSME curriculum, the program is designed to graduate students who meet all the BSEEN and MSME requirements. By taking up to four graduate courses (12 credits) as EEN electives during their senior (or fourth) year and counting these four courses for both B.S.E.E.N. and M.S. degrees, the students who qualify for this program are able to complete the Master's degree requirements within five years. Total credit hour requirements of this program are 146, while the traditional programs require 128 credits for BS and 30 credits for MS.
BSEEN/MSME Curriculum
The BSEEN/MSME (BS/MS) requires:
- 128 Credit Hours of Undergraduate Courses
- Including up to 12 Credit Hours of Graduate Level Courses
- for a total of 30 Credit Hours of Graduate Level Courses
- 158 Credits Hours for both BS & MS
The curriculum includes all the core undergraduate courses that are currently required for BSEEN majors and all the current graduate course requirements of the traditional ME Master's program.
Students are required to maintain a minimum GPA of 3.2 for the first 85 credit hours of course work (normally the end of fifth semester) in the plan of study to be conditionally admitted to the program. Energy Engineering Undergraduates who have completed more than 85 credits hours are also eligible to apply to this program, provided that their most current GPA is over 3.2, and they will be willing to take four graduate courses as ME electives for the BS degree part of their plan of study. Interested students are advised to contact the department office at SL 260 for details.
The total credit hours required for this dual BSMS degree program are 158 hours. For reference, the traditional BSEEN requires 128 hours, and the MS in ME requires 30 hours, for a total of 158 hours. The integrated program is constructed to exploit an overlap of 12 credit hours of approved Graduate Level courses, thereby reducing the number of credit hours needed to an additional 18 credit hours of Graduate Level Courses.
Students are admitted to the MEE department, under the guidelines that currently exist for admitting traditional BS students. The sequence of courses that they will take for the first three years will be identical to the courses taken by the traditional EEN majors. The students are made aware of the option to pursue the dual degree program during their first year, and counseled appropriately if they wish to pursue it.
There are two plans of study for students to maintain in this program: 1) BS plan of study that is to be filed no later than one semester before completing the BS degree requirements (normally in the seventh semester), including the 12 credit hours of graduate courses to be taken in place of the EEN Electives, and 2) MS plan of study that is to be completed after the completion of the BS plan of study (normally in the ninth semester), which will include the four graduate courses (12 credit hours) taken.
The two plans of study to be maintained are attached to this document, where the four overlapped graduate courses (12 credit hours) are to be indicated in both BS and MS plans.
The final admission to the graduate program are not be made unless the student meets the minimum 3.00 GPA requirement and receives at least a B grade in each of the four graduate courses in his/her BS plan of study.
A minimum GPA of 3.00 will be required in the MS plan of study for graduation as in the traditional Master's program. Master's GPA will be calculated by including the grades of four graduate courses transferred from the BS plan of study.
The program is designed such that a student in the program is able to switch to the traditional BSEEN at any time to receive only a BSEEN degree.
The graduate program offers THESIS and NON-THESIS options. Depending on the nature of the research, in some cases the THESIS option may require an additional semester to finish. Thesis committees are to consist of at least three members from MEE department.
The Graduate Committee reviews each student's performance each semester after they are conditionally admitted to the dual degree program.
Following the conditional admission, the student's performance are assessed by the ME Graduate Committee at the end of each semester to ensure that the student's performance is at the level expected for traditional MS students in the ME graduate program and the grades in each Master's courses in the BSEEN plan of study must be B or higher.
As mentioned previously, if a student decides to leave the program, he/she will still be eligible to receive a BSEEN degree. Also, if the student's performance is judged to be unsatisfactory for the dual degree program by the ME Graduate Committee, because of not meeting the minimum grade requirements (minimum of 3.00 GPA in BS plan of study and minimum B grade in each of the first four graduate courses taken), the student is still able to receive a BS in ME upon completion of all the requirements for that degree.
