About the Petroleum Engineering Doctoral Program
The objectives of the Ph.D. program are to provide students opportunities to reach a critical understanding of the basic scientific and engineering principles underlying their fields of interest and to cultivate their ability to apply these principles creatively through advanced methods of analysis, research, and synthesis.
The Ph.D. degree is awarded primarily on the basis of research. Applicants for the doctoral degree must have a degree in engineering disciplines and must meet the approval of the department’s graduate committee. Students majoring in this department for a doctoral degree must take the qualifying examinations by the second long semester of enrollment. These qualifying examinations consist of two parts. The first part is based on the undergraduate curriculum and concerns the following four areas of petroleum engineering: production, drilling, reservoir engineering, and formation evaluation. Students will have only two chances to take and successfully pass the first part of the qualifying exam. If students do not pass the qualifying exam by the second attempt, the student will be removed from the program. The second part of the qualifying examination is an oral defense of the dissertation proposal.
In addition to regulations established by the Graduate School, applicants for candidacy for the doctor’s degree are required to complete a minimum of 72 credit hours beyond the bachelor of science degree in petroleum engineering comprised of 60 hours of coursework (which may include up to 12 hours of 7000-level research) and 12 hours of PETR 8000 (dissertation). During their coursework, students are required to demonstrate high proficiency in one of the four areas mentioned above. The coursework of each student must also meet any additional recommendation of the student’s dissertation committee.
Other requirements such as the rules and guidelines for constituting M.S. and Ph.D. graduate committees, are detailed in the department M.S. and Ph.D. manuals. The graduate advisor determines course content and transferrable hours from any previous Master of Science in Petroleum Engineering programs. No more than 24 hours can be transferred. Transfer equivalencies must be approved by the Graduate Program Committee or graduate advisor during the first semester of enrollment.
The department has no specific foreign language requirement (but a foreign language for the Ph.D. degree can be specified at the discretion of the student’s dissertation advisor). Research tools are included as an integral part of the degree program in the minor or major courses of each student. Additional information may be obtained from the departmental program advisor. The graduate faculty advisor, who is in contact with the graduate faculty, will be the final decision maker when matters require.
