A Bachelors Masters in 5 Years

A Bachelor’s Master’s in 5 Years This will be the first in a series of entries focused on my department and opportunities available to its students. :) Well, you may have heard that many of MITs engineering departments have something called the MEng, or Master of Engineering, which is typically a one-year degree pursued after graduation, or during ones final semester of senior year and an additional semester. Most notably, Course 6 (Electrical Eng Comp Sci) offers this and Im pretty sure its a lock if you have a certain technical GPA (like a 4.25 out of 5.0). Its an attractive option because you end up with both bachelors and masters degrees in a shorter period than if you were to pursue them separately or elsewhere. But its not just for engineers. Undergraduates in the Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning (known affectionately as DUSP) have a similar option. The two-year Master of City Planning (MCP) program accepts applications from DUSP students in the junior year, waiving the GRE requirement (!!!) and allowing entrance to the program the following year (as a senior). So as a senior, youd be both a fourth-year undergrad and a first-year grad student, working to complete the requirements for both degrees at the end of five years. That doesnt mean you cant graduate with your undergrad class first its all about how you want to structure things. In DUSP, there are four specialization areas or groups, and students tend to pick an advisor and affiliate with the group that most closely matches their interests. As a grad student, you choose which group you want when you apply, but as an undergrad you have the chance to explore offerings in any field and see how youd like to focus in the future. The topics are wide-ranging and can be closer to the kinds of design one might see in Course 4, architecture (see the Senseable City Lab) or to the sorts of quantitative analysis one might do in Course 1, civil engineering (see the Center for Transportation and Logistics). I was one of the student representatives of DUSP at the Choice of Majors fair last week (event in the student center to help freshmen get a flavor for what they might want to study next year), and we had several people stop by who were interested in the social and planning aspects concerning developing countries. That is also a big part of our department in fact, its the focus of IDG, the International Development Group. Im especially attracted to the study of transportation, as youve no doubt found if youve followed my blog in the past. A nice thing about DUSP is the ability to pursue a joint program of the MCP and a related masters degree (such as the MST, the Master of Science in Transportation). You still have to fulfill the separate credit requirements, but you can come up with a joint thesis to satisfy both degrees. One of the great things about our department is the study and research of planning in all sorts of places, not just the Boston area or the U.S. My next entry will talk about some of the available international and study-abroad opportunities, including a class that pays for spring break overseas!