Doctor of Philosophy in Civil Engineering [BS-PhD Track]

The Ph.D. degree in Civil Engineering is a research degree designed to produce a scholar and is granted only to students who have demonstrated mastery in a specialty of civil engineering and capacity to conduct original and independent scholarly work.
Curriculum. The curriculum for the B.S. to Ph.D. track includes a total of 69 semester hours, consisting of coursework and dissertation research. Any student who starts the Ph.D. program with a B.S. degree will be required to take a 3-credit-hour Directed Independent Study (DIS) course with the objective of demonstrating the student’s ability to develop a scholarly paper based on a comprehensive literature review and understanding of research methodology. Students are also required to take a 3-credit-hour Supervised Research course.
To enroll in a course in the curriculum, students must satisfy the course prerequisites. Students entering the major without a civil or environmental engineering degree also must satisfy a set of articulation courses. Students are expected to enroll in Graduate Seminar (CGN 5935) each semester in which they have full-time status.
The specialty (depth) area courses provide students an advanced education in a specific civil engineering sub-discipline and support the student in attaining mastery in a specialty area. Courses in the specialty area may include related courses from other departments.
The supplementary electives are intended to develop the student’s complementary multidisciplinary skills and knowledge. Supplementary electives may include courses from other civil and environmental engineering areas outside of the chosen specialty, other engineering disciplines, the sciences, advanced mathematics and statistics, computer computational science, urban and regional planning, and geography.

Master’s degree in civil engineering, environmental engineering, or a closely related engineering or science discipline from an accredited college or university.

A minimum grade point average (GPA) of 3.0 on a 4.0 scale on all coursework attempted as an upper division student (beyond 60 semester credit hours).

Hold a graduate degree in a related field from an accredited institution of higher learning with a cumulative GPA of 3.0 or better.