Doctor of Philosophy in Geosciences

The principal objectives of the Ph.D. program are to provide students an opportunity to reach a critical understanding of basic scientific principles underlying their fields of interest and to cultivate their ability to apply these principles creatively through training in advanced methods of analysis, research, and synthesis.

Curriculum Requirements. The Ph.D. program requires 90 approved credit hours of graduate credit above the baccalaureate level, distributed in the following manner:

  • Minimum credit hours of research and dissertation, which may include 6 hours of master’s degree thesis credits (20 hours)
  • Minimum credit hours of graduate credit in course work and independent study, including master’s degree course work (54 hours)
  • Minimum credit hours of course work outside the major area (12 hours)
  • Maximum credit hours of independent study (12 hours)
  • Maximum credit hours of 6000-level course work (24 hours)

Students may be required to complete prerequisite undergraduate courses and remove deficiencies without graduate credit, resulting in a program of more than 90 credit hours. If approved by the advisory committee (see below), as many as 30 credit hours of course work and research completed in a master’s degree program at any accredited institution may be distributed, as outlined above, among the 90 hours of graduate credit. Not more than 12 credit hours of approved doctoral-level courses beyond the M.S. may be transferred from another institution. A GPA of at least a 3.3 must be maintained. These requirements are not variable except under special circumstances and with permission of the student’s advisor and the Dean of the Graduate School.

Detailed information about the Doctoral program can be found in the Graduate Bulletin on pages 183-186.

Students should familiarize themselves with all requirements for the Doctoral degree.