The primary goals of the Doctoral program are to prepare students for a research/development career and to generate new knowledge. The specific objectives are:

Doctoral thesis research comprises the core of the department’s scholarly productivity. The generation of new ideas and methods is primarily driven by interaction between faculty and doctoral candidates. Most of the publications of the department involve collaborative work between PhD students and faculty. Our reputation rests in large part on the quality of work by these students. Some Doctoral students also hold teaching assistantships. Doctoral-level TAs contribute to advising and tutoring of undergraduate students, and supervising laboratory courses.

As noted, the doctoral program is the foundation of the research mission of the department. The contributions of the Department to new science and technology in materials science and engineering are largely the result of PhD thesis projects, and the University’s position as a leader in this field results from this enterprise. The interdisciplinary nature of our program serves as a cornerstone for any materials related research on the campus. One reflection of this is the participation of faculty from other departments in our students PhD supervising committees.

The Masters Program is designed to prepare students for both the PhD program and industrial employment. The specific objectives are:

The Masters students contribute both to the research and teaching mission of the department. They contribute to the department’s scholarly productivity through research and publications. Some Masters students also hold teaching assistantships. Masters level TAs contribute to advising and tutoring of undergraduates and supervising laboratory courses. .

The Engineering Materials option for an MS degree in Materials Science and Engineering is a non-thesis program designed for students with substantive industrial experience who want a Master’s degree to further their career goals or to meet work requirements. Students selecting this degree option should be practicing materials engineers with BS degrees. This program contains practice-oriented courses in addition to the usual graduate core courses. In place of a research-oriented thesis, students carry out a complete analysis and develop recommended solutions to an engineering materials problem. This project is industrially oriented, undertaken at an industrial site and supervised by an experienced engineer in industry and an MSE faculty member. Written and oral final project reports are required. The Engineering Materials option is designed to be completed in one year (4 quarters) for on-campus students; it is also available for part-time students through the Education at a Distance for Growth and Excellence program (EDGE).

The Department uses a variety of measures to assess its effectiveness in meeting the objectives of the Doctoral and Masters program. These include:

The graduate coursework is designed to provide a higher (than BS) level expertise in both core topics and specialty areas chosen by the student. This is accomplished by requiring all the students to take three required core courses and a series of elective courses. The complete details of the graduate level courses are provided in Appendix D-1.

The three required core courses are: MSE 510, "Bonding, Crystallography and Symmetry-related Properties of Materials"; MSE 541, "Defects in Materials"; and MSE 525, "Thermodynamic Topics in Materials Science". They are also required to enroll for the department seminar series for at least three quarters.

Graduate student statistics for both the Department and College for the past 10 years is presented in Appendix D-2. The number of graduate students enrolled in the department is shown in Figure 6. Since 1995-96, we have tracked the diversity of the student body. There has been a measurable increase in the % of women (from 23% to 31% and underrepresented minorities (from 8% to 13%) enrolled. Over the 10-year period, the Department has awarded, on average, 4 PhD’s and 9 Master’s per year. Figure 7 shows the trends in the number of degrees awarded.

For many years recruitment was done on an individual basis. Students who asked to visit our department were encouraged and supported to visit. Prospective students would meet with a few faculty and graduate students and would tour the facilities. After our Academic Counselor arrived, the first Visit Day (spring 2000) was instituted in an effort to be more organized and comprehensive regarding the recruiting of graduate students. For academic year 2000-01, four students were offered travel funds to attend Visit Day as part of their financial aid package. Two of those students accepted our offer. A total of nine students out of eighteen accepted our financial aid offers.

The second Visit Day (spring 2001) was slightly more successful. Seven students were offered travel money to attend Visit Day and four of those students entered our department. The third Visit Day (spring 2002) included 14 prospective students, of which three enrolled in our program. For academic year 2003-04, the Graduate Committee decided to recruit each student individually, relying on telephone contact from the Chair or other faculty members. Selected students were invited to visit the department on an individual basis. Feedback from these students revealed that they felt they had a better understanding of what they would get here as opposed to their experience at visit days at other institutions. This procedure was highly successful. We were able to attract 4 of the 9 students who visited us. Most of these students were highly recruited and the success of this effort is remarkable.

In addition to recruiting domestic students through visits as discussed above, we recruit both domestic and international students using other means. Faculty members identify strong prospective students from their colleagues, visits to other institutions and professional meetings. These students are encouraged to apply to the graduate program. The Department also participates in the annual potential graduate student database of the University Materials Council. Every year, undergraduate students in leading MS&E Departments who have expressed interest in graduate school are listed in this database by their Departments. We contact all the students in this database, invite them to consider our department and provide them with information about the department and contact information for the academic counselor. Our website provides up-to-date information for interested students. This website is maintained by the Assistant to the Chair. Many of our prospective students contact us and want to work on a specific research program or with a particular faculty members. These requests are passed on to the faculty member and if they are interested and the student meets the departmental admission requirements, the faculty member becomes the focal point in recruiting that student. Similarly, once students have been admitted to the program, each student is assigned to a faculty member who is the contact person in recruiting that student.

The admission to the graduate program is highly competitive. The students’ undergraduate performance, their test scores (GRE), motivation and reason for pursuing graduate degree and the letters of recommendation are considered in the admission decision. Appendix D-2 provides the admission data for the past ten years. As can be seen, our offer rate over the past 10 years has ranged from as low as 14% to as high as 53%, and the rate of students accepting offers has ranged from 26 to 50%.

We have very little attrition among our graduate students. There is so much student-faculty contact that faculty are usually aware of discontent and take steps to deal with problems before they become significant. An example of the retention is shown in Table 8. In the autumn of 1996, we admitted 8 graduate students, all of whom have now completed their programs.

Doctoral students are advised by their supervisory committee (SC) chair, members of the supervisory committee and by the academic counselor. Master’s students are advised by their thesis committee chair and the academic counselor. Each one of them has a specific advising role. The department maintains an advising Graduate Planbook (Appendix E-1) which is provided to the student upon entry and kept up-to-date by our academic counselor.

The supervisory committee chair, or the thesis committee chair, is the primary advisor and responsibilities include monitoring of progress towards degree (including coursework, and examinations), definition of a thesis topic, providing resources to conduct research, provide advice and guidance on research, and monitoring of research progress. The members of the supervisory committee also participates in advising on all of these aspects. The academic counselor monitors students progress towards their degrees, entertains petitions and helps resolve any specific issues between the student and the advisor. See Appendix D-3 for more information on progress to degree. Reports showing the status of each PhD student are distributed to faculty at the annual retreat. See Appendices D-4(a), D-4(b), D-4(c), D-4(d) for samples of checklists we provide which outline the steps students need to take to complete their Master’s degree, Non-Thesis Master’s degree, PhD General Exam and PhD Final Exam.

Both Masters and Doctoral students work closely with their supervisory committee chairs. It’s a very hands-on experience. This close interaction is the primary mentoring of the students. Through this interaction, students develop a professional identity including learning how to do research, defining research problems, research supervision, data analysis and synthesis, presentation and participation in professional meetings, writing papers and reports, writing research proposals, information and advise regarding career options, and help with placement. In many of these aspects, students are also mentored by other members of the supervisory Committee and other members of the faculty.

The Department runs a weekly seminar series with speakers from academia, national labs and industry. This provides an avenue for the students to build networks and learn first hand from researchers engaged in a variety of careers. The list of seminar speakers in 2002-03 together with the titles of their presentations are presented in Appendix D-5.

Our students are encouraged to discuss grievances directly with the person with whom they are having difficulty. They are also encouraged to bring the grievance to the attention of the academic counselor. If the grievance is not resolved, and it involves faculty, graduate students are advised to discuss the problem with the Chair. If the grievance involves staff or other graduate students, they can talk with the administrator, academic counselor or the Chair.

The department pays special attention to recognize the achievements of the students. The supervisory or thesis committee chair and the academic counselor work with the students in helping them identify appropriate Fellowships and Scholarships to apply for and actively nominate students for awards and honors. As a result of this, a significant number of the students from the Department receive them. The Department recognizes the students who have received these awards in several ways. These include a congratulatory e-mail from the Chair, announcement at the faculty meetings, listing in the Department newsletter, announcement at the Department Graduation Ceremonies, and announcement at the annual Faculty and Staff Retreats. In Appendix D-6, we present the list of awards that the graduate students have received in the last two years.

Graduate students are an integral part of the Department. One of the most significant participation is as teaching assistants (TAs). TAs are involved in supervising lab courses, grading home works and leading tutorial sections. Graduate students provide valuable input for evaluations of technical and administrative staff. They meet with faculty candidates and provide input on them. They have also provided input on the hiring of staff members (most recently on the hiring of the Manager of the Electron Microscopy Center and the academic counselor). Graduate students have been members of the technical and the administrative staff restructuring committees.

Recently, one of the most significant involvements of the graduate students has been in the Departmental Seminar Committee. Since 2001, the Departmental Seminars have been organized by a committee of graduate students. This committee seeks input from faculty and selects the final list of speakers. They contact the speakers, arrange their schedule and interact with the visitors. They do this with minimal guidance from a faculty advisor. This model of running the seminar series has lead to an ownership of the series by the students. Most of the visitors have very favorably commented on this model of running the seminars and also on the very positive interactions they had with the students. The seminar committee for the current year (2003-04) is listed in Appendix D-7.

The Department has actively recruited women and underrepresented minority students to the graduate program. We have used a variety of recruiting tools including special scholarships (GOMAP, ARCS and Nanotechnology Center Early Bird). In Table 9, we present the demographic information of our graduate students in the last five years. Although the percentage of women in the graduate program is high, we recognize that we need to continue our efforts in recruiting more women to the program. There has been a steady increase in the percentage of women in the graduate program. The recruitment of underrepresented minority students needs to be significantly strengthened. We are currently developing a strategy, in consultation with Minority in Science and Engineering Program (MSEP) and Graduate Opportunities & Minority Achievement Program (GOMAP) to enhance the recruitment of underrepresented minority students.

Time to Degree statistics are available for doctoral degrees granted from Summer 1994 through spring 1999. Table 10 shows MSE statistics for that period.

The students who complete their technical education with a Masters degree are highly desired and recruited. They are employed in a variety of industrial sectors including electronics, automotive, and aerospace. They work in material design and manufacturing, including electronic and optical material and devices, micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS), system design, and materials selection as related to the structure, properties, processing, and applications of materials. In the last five years, the majority of these students have joined semiconductor manufacturing companies. Intel has been the largest single recruiter of our MS students.

The students who complete their PhD work in academia (as post doctoral research associates or faculty), national labs and industry. The majority of industrial jobs in the last five years have been in electronics, aerospace and small research focused organizations. Figure 8 presents the break down of the first job after graduation for both MS and PhD students since 2000. The employment status of all students who received their MS or PhD between 2000 and 2003 is presented in Appendix D-8. We have not done a very good job of tracking which students eventually pursue an academic career. This will be corrected in the future.

The department continuously monitors the changes in job opportunity for our graduate students. This is done using a variety of techniques. The Chair discusses employment opportunities with recruiters from the department. The Chair regularly participates in the meetings of the University Materials Council and shares information on career placement with other MS&E Chairs. At the annual Faculty Retreat held just before autumn Quarter begins, the Chair shares this information with the MSE faculty and we discuss the implications of these. The faculty bring their own perspective and information that they are familiar with. They keep abreast of current information by attending conferences and participating in professional societies. We also get information about current and emerging career trends from our alumni.

The department makes a special effort of obtaining information about our alumni’s professional careers. Our primary method of this is from faculty who are in contact with them (typically their Supervisory Committee Chairs). The second and more scientific way to get career information is through alumni surveys. The last one just for departmental use was in 1996. In 2001 we did another survey about alumni opinions of our programs for ABET purposes, but it was anonymous so we did not get personal information. There are alumni update forms in our newsletters but they tend to generate low response.

Finally, we are very proactive about letting our graduating students know that we want to hear about what happens to them in the future. This is emphasized to the students in their exit interview with the Chair and with the academic counselor. We are planning a web based form that the alumni can fill out to let us know of changes in their job/contact information.

Graduate student service appointments in teaching and research provide financial support for graduate students while they pursue their MSE degrees. The Department provides support to graduate students in the form of Teaching Assistantships (TAs) and Research Assistantships (RAs). The Department typically funds 11 to 12 TAs each quarter, while external grants fund approximately 30 RAs per quarter.