To satisfy the course requirement for the Ph.D. degree, the student must successfully complete 36 credits of course work and 12 credits of ENEE899: Doctoral Dissertation Research. A grade of C- or better must be earned in each course, and an overall minimum GPA of 3.0 must be maintained. 

All Ph.D. students should complete and gain approval for a proposed plan of study within the first semester of enrollment. The main conditions for approval are:

• in the opinion of the student’s advisor and graduate director, the program must be coherent;

• the program must satisfy the rules listed below;

• non-ENEE courses that are not pre-approved (see Course Information section) must receive special approval by the student’s advisor and the graduate director, in the context of the proposed plan of study; such approval must be obtained before the start of the semester in which the student plans to take the course. 

Modifications to the plan of study can be filed subsequently, again subject to approval by the student’s advisor and the graduate director. 

For the purposes of meeting the plan of study rules, all transferred courses (see below) will count as B (3.0 grade point value). However, grades obtained on transfer courses do not affect the GPA as recorded on the official UMCP transcript. 

If two or more attempts are taken at a course, only the grade obtained at the latest attempt counts towards the GPA. 

For all doctoral students (except those with a previous M.S. degree in Electrical Engineering or Electrical and Computer Engineering from a U.S. institution — see Ph.D. Transfer of Credit), a valid plan of study must include at least 36 credits of approved course work. Moreover, the plan of study must satisfy the following rules: 

• Prerequisites must be fulfilled before taking courses that require them;

• All credits must be at the 600-level or above, excluding ENEE899: Doctoral Dissertation Research;

• At least 18 credits of ENEE lecture courses must be included;

• At least six credits of approved non-ENEE courses at the 600-level or above must be included (see Course Information section).

• Three credits of ENEE698: Graduate Seminar must be included, but no more than three may be included;

• Combined total number of credits of ENEE 699: Independent Study and ENEE799: Master’s Thesis Research included in the plan of study may not exceed six;

• No credits of ENEE898: Pre-candidacy Research or ENEE889: Teaching Workshop may be included.