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Professional Degree in Electrical Engineering

Department:	Electrical Engineering
Transcript Designation:	Electrical Engineer
Program Advisor:	Academic Questions: e-mail advisor@cvn.columbia.edu

Program Description:

The Professional Degree in Electrical Engineering is designed to provide specialization beyond the M.S. degree in an area chosen by the student. It is particularly suited for those who wish to advance their professional development after a period of industrial employment. The program does not require a thesis. A prospective E.E. candidate follows a program of study formulated in consultation with an advisor; the program will be arranged to meet the professional objectives of the candidate. It will require at least three courses in a specific electrical engineering area or a closely allied area like computer science and may include a seminar or a project for which a report is to be produced. Course work could be selected with a focus on any of the technological areas in which the department is strong, such as communications, information processing, solid-state electronics, integrated electronics, photonics, ultra-fast optics, VLSI systems, electromagnetics, or plasmas, as well as from related areas such as computer engineering and control systems.


Admission Requirements:

Degree required for admission: Bachelor's degree and master's degree in engineering or science. Ordinarily, the applicant will have degrees in electrical engineering, but preparation in a related field of engineering or science is acceptable.

GPA required: Minimum of 3.0

GRE requirements: The GRE requirement is waived for Professional Degree applicants

Other application requirements: For the Professional Degree, only one recommendation letter is required. Also, transcripts, resume, and a personal-professional statement are required. TOEFL test scores are required of all students who received their degrees in a country where English is not the official and spoken language. All other application requirements in the Graduate Application must be completed as specified in the application.


Degree Requirements:

Students must complete a program of study formulated in consultation with their academic advisor.

Candidates for the P.D. degree must complete at least 30 credits of academic work with an academic average of 3.0 or better.

Of the 30 credits that must be earned for the degree, 20 must be taken in ELEN or COMS, of which at least 10 credits must be of the ELEN designation.

No credit is given toward the degree for the following courses: AM E4206, IEOR E4003, IEOR E4207, IEOR E4208, IEOR W4105, or IEOR W4150.

The Professional Degree is awarded for satisfactory completion of a graduate program at a higher level of course work than is normally completed for the M.S. degree.

All degree requirements must be completed within 5 years of the beginning of the first course credited toward the degree. This includes courses taken in the non-degree program.


Transfer of credit:

Up to 6 credit hours (points) of acceptable graduate-level academic work from an accredited academic institution earned prior to enrolling at Columbia may be transferred to Columbia, subject to departmental approval. Students must request the transfer of credit while applying to the PD program. Credit will only be considered for transfer if the grades earned were at least 3.0 on the 4.0 scale. An official college transcript and copy of the class syllabus and/or course description from the school's bulletin must accompany the "Transfer of Credit Request" form. Please note that courses already used towards completion of another degree program can not be re-used for transfer credit.