Master's Degree Program and Requirements
The master’s degree will be granted to degree candidates who complete a program of studies approved by a faculty advisor. The degree does not require a thesis, but students may include a thesis in their program with up to nine units for their thesis work. The program must consist of no less than 46 units. In addition, a 3.0 GPA (B average) must be earned in all coursework taken at Santa Clara University. Residence requirements are met by completing 37 units of the graduate program at Santa Clara University. A maximum of nine quarter units (six-semester units) of graduate-level coursework may be transferred from other accredited institutions at the discretion of the student’s advisor. All units applied toward the degree, including those transferred from other institutions, must be earned within six years.
Students must develop a program of studies with an academic advisor and file the approved program during their first term of enrollment at Santa Clara University. The program of studies must contain a minimum of 46 or more units of graduate-level engineering courses which include at least 27 units of courses offered within the department and no more than four units of engineering management courses.
The Electrical and Computer Engineering Program of Study-New Req must include the following:
- Graduate Core (minimum 8 units): See descriptions in Chapter 4, Academic Information
- Applied Mathematics (4 units)
- Electrical and Computer Engineering primary focus area (minimum 6 units). Students must select and meet the requirements of one of the six focus areas listed below.
Take either (236 or 281A) and two courses selected from (211, 232, 281B, 333)
Take three courses selected from (252, 261, 270, 387)
RF and Applied Electromagnetics
Take 201 and two courses selected from (202, 203, 204, 624, 701, 706)
Signal Processing and Machine Learning
Take 233 and two courses selected from (234, 421, 431, 520, 640, 644)
Take 501, 511, and 603
Take both 241 and 243, and one course selected from (244, 444, 446)
4. Electrical and Computer Engineering breadth: (minimum 4 units) Two other focus areas must be selected as breadth areas. For each breadth area, one of the courses specified in the list above is required.
5. Additional graduate courses recommended and approved by the graduate program advisor.
These M.S. degree requirements may be adjusted by the advisor based on the student’s previous graduate work.
An advisor may approve selected undergraduate classes that do not duplicate course content of graduate courses in the program of studies. No more than 15 units of electives may be selected from the following upper-division undergraduate courses: 105, 112, 116, 117, 118, 130, 133, 141, 144, 151, 152, 153, 156, 160, 164, 183, 184.
Alterations in the approved program, consistent with the above departmental requirements, may be requested at any time by a petition initiated by the student and approved by the advisor.
Students with relevant technical backgrounds may be admitted to the Master's program without a BS in Electrical and/or Computer Engineering from an accredited program. In order to guarantee prerequisites for graduate courses, those students must take sufficient additional courses beyond the 46-unit minimum to ensure coverage of all areas of the undergraduate EE core requirements. A student who has earned a Fundamentals of Electrical and Computer Engineering Certificate will have satisfied these background requirements.
Undergraduate Core Courses
- ELEN 21 Introduction to Logic Design
- ELEN 50 Electric Circuits I
- ELEN 100 Electric Circuits II
- ELEN 104 Electromagnetics I
- ELEN 110 Linear Systems
- ELEN 115 Electronic Circuits I
- ELEN 120 Microprocessor System Design
The advisor will determine which courses must be taken to meet these requirements. Undergraduate core courses will not be included in the 46 units required for the Master's of Science in Electrical and Computer Engineering.
Please Note: In general, no credit will be allowed for courses that duplicate prior coursework, including courses listed above as degree requirements. (However, graduate-level treatment of a topic is more advanced than an undergraduate course with a similar title.) Students should discuss any adjustments of these requirements with their academic advisor before they file their program of studies. In all cases, prerequisite requirements should be interpreted to mean the course specified or an equivalent course taken elsewhere.
minimum 8 units
See descriptions in Chapter 4 of the Graduate Bulletin, Academic Information
4 units
Primary focus area: (minimum 6 units)
Students must select and meet the requirements of one of the six focus areas listed below:
minimum 4 units
Two other focus areas must be selected as breadth areas. For each breadth area, one of the courses specified in the list above is required.