PhD Coursework and Program of Work

The ECE PhD program requires a Program of Work consisting of at least 6 hours of individual instruction Dissertation coursework taken at UT-Austin on a credit/no-credit basis and 30 semester hours of graduate-level classroom-based instruction courses (ten three-hour courses) taken for a letter grade and not used toward an undergraduate degree nor a prior PhD.

Expectations for acceptable academic progress on the Program of Work are:

• Maintain a minimum grade point average (GPA) of 3.33 within the graduate program at the University of Texas at Austin prior to completing the classroom-based portion of the PhD Program of Work.
• Complete the full classroom-based portion of the PhD Program of Work prior to attempting 9 hours of classroom-based coursework that cannot be used toward the PhD Program of Work, except as approved for other purposes.

For more details see the ECE PhD Program of Work Requirements HERE.

Classroom Coursework Requirements

The classroom-based coursework that is required to complete your PhD program is divided into the following categories.

• At least 24 hours must be at the graduate level.
• At least 18 hours must be “Major Coursework”.
• At least 6 hours must be “Supporting Coursework”.
• At least 12 hours of the 30 must be taken for graduate credit at UT-Austin.

Which courses may be counted as major work and which may be counted as supporting work can vary not only with the academic track but with the interests of the individual student. Ultimately, all major and supporting coursework must be logically related.

Up to 18 hours of graduate level coursework taken at another university may be used to fulfill the Program of Work requirements for a PhD in our department. Coursework from outside institutions must not have been used towards a previous undergraduate or doctoral degree. It is important to note that this policy of outside coursework does NOT pertain to students that are pursuing a MSE in our department.

For coursework taken at The University of Texas at Austin, a minimum grade point average of 3.33 is required in coursework within the Program of Work, and no course with a grade of less than a B- may be counted toward the Program of Work. The Program of Work including coursework taken at another university also should meet these standards. 

The student’s PhD Program of Work must be approved by the student's supervising professor or professors, their dissertation committee, which can require additional coursework beyond the above described minimums, the Chair of the ECE GSC, and the Graduate School of the University of Texas at Austin. 

PhD students also take accompanying individual instruction research problems and dissertation courses before and after entering candidacy, respectively, as required to meet program of work, registration and employment requirements.

Transfer of Coursework

Students who enter the ECE PhD program with a master’s degree from another school, or who took graduate courses at another school without earning a graduate degree, may be able to count up to 6 approved non-UT graduate courses toward the ECE PhD degree. No course with a grade of less than a B taken at another institution may be counted within the ECE PhD Program of Work.  UT-Austin has no formal procedure for transferring these graduate courses a student took at another school toward a PhD at UT-Austin. In ECE, the doctoral student’s supervising professor provides tentative approval of 6 graduate courses maximum from another school that the student can list on the ECE PhD Program of Work form. (Note that coursework earned on the quarter system from another school is calculated as two-thirds of the credit for courses offered on a semester basis. Three quarter-system courses count as two semester-system courses.) 

The ten graduate courses listed on the ECE PhD Program of Work are approved by the members of the student’s dissertation committee at the Progress Review, followed by approval from the chair of the ECE Graduate Studies Committee.