The master’s program consists of 45 units of course work taken at Stanford. No thesis is required, although many students become involved in research projects during the master’s program, particularly to explore their interests in working towards a Ph.D. degree. Students whose undergraduate backgrounds are entirely devoid of some of the major subject disciplines of engineering (for example, applied mechanics, applied thermodynamics, fluid mechanics, ordinary differential equations) may need to take some undergraduate courses to fill obvious gaps and prepare themselves to take graduate courses in these areas. Such students may require more than three quarters to fulfill the master’s degree requirements, as the makeup courses may only be used as unrestricted electives (see item 4 below) in the M.S. degree program. However, it is not the policy to require fulfillment of mechanical engineering B.S. degree requirements to obtain an M.S. degree.

Career in related field.