Transfer of credit

Many students earn graduate credit prior to enrolling in the MSE or WE graduate program. The Graduate Studies Committee (GSC) of the student's program will entertain a petition from the student requesting application of previously earned credit toward the degree requirements.

Submission of the petition

An enrolled student should petition the Graduate Studies Committee of his/her program (MSE or WE) within the first semester of enrollment.

Content of the petition

The petition may take the form of an email or letter addressed to the Graduate Studies Committee Chair of his/her program and a cc/copy provided to the MSE-WE Graduate Studies Coordinator. The petition asks the GSC to consider previously earned credit to be equivalent to course work available at Ohio State. This may be course work in the student's program (i.e., materials or welding-related) or outside the program (ex., math, chemistry, physics, or other engineering courses).

The petition is to list any previously earned courses for consideration along with proposed OSU equivalent courses; the GSC does not search out equivalent courses for the student, this is the student's responsibility.

In support of the petition, the student should also provide documentation to aid the GSC in determining prior course content. At minimum, a course syllabus (in English) and titles of the text(s) used should be provided. Items such as tests, quizzes, and notes are also helpful.

To state the obvious, a student enrolled in one of our graduate programs will be earning a degree from Ohio State. Therefore the GSC of either program is unwilling to approve the waiver of a large number of credits coming from another institution. Students are welcome to request any amount of credit be waived, but s/he should know that in practice the GSC is conservative in its approval of credits.

GSC decision

Often the GSC will not provide a decision on the petition until sometime in the following semester. The primary reason for this is to allow the GSC to "calibrate" the student's knowledge by seeing how s/he does in our courses.

Waiver of degree requirements

The GSC's decision will state that X number of credits from the student's degree requirements have been waived. While the student must still meet the minimum number of overall graduate credits required for an MS or PhD, S/U-graded credits may be used in place of the waived graded credits to meet this minimum.

Contacts

GSC Chairs for MSE & WE

MSE GSC Chair: Dr. Suliman Dregia

WE GSC Chair: Dr. Stanislav Rokhlin

Questions?

Please contact Mark Cooper, Graduate Studies Coordinator, should you have questions about the graduate program in MSE or WE. Mark may be reached at: