Combined Bs/Ms Programs In Mechanical Engineering: A Benchmark Study

The G.W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech) started offering a combined BS/MS degree in fall 2001. This program allows meritorious undergraduate students, desiring graduate studies beyond the bachelor of science degree, an accelerated path towards the granting of the master of science degree. Students may pursue a thesis or non-thesis option in completing the MS degree. Since inception of this program, a majority of the BS/MS students have chosen the non-thesis (course work only) option. A recent goal of this BS/MS program in mechanical engineering at Georgia Tech is to increase the number of students choosing the thesis, or research, option. This paper compares BS/MS programs in mechanical engineering at Georgia Tech and its peer institutions. The purpose is to analyze how various academic institutions address this issue (minority of BS/MS students doing a thesis), to collect lessons learned, and to provide recommendations that could promote an increase in thesis participation in BS/MS programs in the future.