Degree Requirements

A total of 30 credits is required for a Master of Engineering degree. At least 20 of the 30 credits must be completed through Penn State's Graduate Program in Acoustic and 16 of the total 30 credits these must be in the required core courses. Up to 10 credits may be transferred from other institutions provided they are acceptable to the Graduate Program in Acoustics as suitable for the acoustics degree, have a grade of B or better, and be approved by the Penn State Graduate School. Transferred academic work must have been completed within five years prior to the date of first degree registration in Penn State's Graduate School and may not have been used to earn a degree. In addition, students must satisfy the residence requirement by enrolling for at least 4 credits during the special Summer Program in Acoustics offered each June on the University Park Campus.

The summer program also acquaints students with the research activities at Penn State and permits them to identify and secure an advisor. The advisor insures that a student has the proper guidance and support within the Graduate Program in Acoustics and is responsible for supervising a student's Master of Engineering paper. A Master of Engineering student must write a scholarly paper (see below for description of paper requirement). The paper must be approved for its technical content and style by the student's advisor and second reader, and for its format by the Acoustics Program Office. No formal oral defense of the paper is required. All requirements for the degree, including acceptance of the paper, must be met within eight years of admission to degree status.

Course Credits Criteria

Total number of course credits required for M. Eng. Degree - 30
Number of core course credits required - 16
Maximum number of Individual Study (ACS 596) credits - 6

The 14 non-core course credits may be selected from the "Required and Approved" list of courses issued by the Acoustics Program Office. Students may take more than six credits of Individual Study (ACS 596) but such credits cannot be applied to the total number of course credits required. Master of Engineering students may not apply research credits (ACS 600) to the total number of course credits required.

The Advisor

Prior to obtaining an individual advisor, students may contact the Acoustics Program Office for advice on administrative issues and contact individual instructors on issues related to courses. Before completing the final 14 credits, a student must identify and secure an individual advisor. The advisor insures that a student has the proper guidance and support within the Graduate Program in Acoustics and is responsible for supervising a student's Master of Engineering paper.

Advisor's must be a member of the Acoustics Program Graduate Faculty. However, not all members of the Program's Faculty are available to act as an advisor. Each student is advised to contact the Program Office at the beginning of his or her search for an individual advisor and provide a synopsis of the intended paper topic. A list of available faculty members with relevant expertise will be provided to the student. The student should then contact the listed faculty members to discuss the student's current status, goals, and paper topic. If more than one faculty member is identified, it is the student's responsibility to determine which and how many faculty to contact. When the student and faculty member reach an agreement to enter into the student/advisor relationship, both should individually contact the Acoustics Program Office to record the agreement in the student's file. Students are strongly encouraged to focus effort on obtaining the best advisor available. Although it is possible to change advisor's later, this is discouraged as the change will result in unnecessary delay to the student in completing the degree program and unproductive effort on the part of the faculty.

In addition to guiding the student's progress through the last half of his or her academic studies, the advisor closely oversees the writing of the paper, secures a second reader, provides the student with any and all corrections, and indicates acceptance of the paper by being the first to sign the signatory page. The second reader acts as a backup to the advisor, but may not be identified until the paper is in its final draft. The second reader is the second to sign the signatory page.

Capstone Paper

The Master of Engineering degree is based on graduate course work, but the candidate is also required to submit to the Acoustics Program Office a paper, which is the degree capstone. The paper is most easily understood as a scholarly written report or a developmental study involving at least one area represented in the course work. Normally, such a paper represents a study of a particular topic that is more limited than that necessary for a thesis. Often this paper can be developed from some previous work of the student such as a term paper or a technical report. The paper is free of any formal requirements of the Graduate School, but the Acoustics Program requires the student to use the Thesis Guide as an example of the appropriate format. The paper must be approved for its technical content and style by the student's advisor, read and approved by a second reader (who is a member of the Acoustics Program faculty or has been approved as second reader by the Program Head) and for its format by the Acoustics Program Office. The report must be signed by the advisor, second reader, and the Program Head . To meet Program requirements for graduation, each student must provide to the Program Office one bound copy of this paper for retention by the Program. Additional bound copies may be required by the advisor. In addition, the student is encouraged to provide an electronic copy (either DVD or CD is acceptable) to the Program Office. The student must obtain binding specifications from the Acoustics Program Office before final preparation of the bound copy of the paper. All work for the degree, including acceptance of the paper, must be completed within 8 years from admission to the program.

As all M. Eng. papers must be placed in the public domain, if a student's work is funded wholly or in part by an employer, the student must fulfill the employer's internal proprietary requirements while meeting the Acoustics Program's requirement for public access to the paper. At least one copy of the paper must be submitted to the employee's supervisor. The student/employee must provide the Acoustics Program with a release of information, on company letterhead, from an authorized representative of the employer.

Variance to Requirements

The background, experience, and circumstances of individual students vary greatly. If the student can present a rational with an appropriate substitution of requirement or effort, he or she may petition the Acoustics Program Head for a variance to admission or degree requirements. At no time will the required number of course credits be decreased, neither will an English language requirement be reduced nor will the requirement for the paper be altered. Students must petition the Program Head at the time of application for admission to degree; however, the petition is not considered a part of the admission application. Applicants should be aware that petitions are not automatically approved, far more petitions are received than are approved.

Student Misconduct

Students are expected, unless otherwise instructed by the course instructor, to work individually on all homework and exams, and must be the sole author of the master's paper. Students who violate this expectation will be contacted by the Penn State Graduate School and will be penalized according to University policy.

 

 

 

Graduate Program in Acoustics, The Pennsylvania State University