Master's Program
Admission to the M.S. program requires the satisfactory completion of an undergraduate B.S. degree in a relevant or related area, such as Engineering, Mathematics or the Physical, Chemical and Biological Sciences.
Requirements:
A minimum of thirty (30) credit hours must be completed in graduate-level courses and directed research projects. These courses should be 200-level or above, and they must be approved by the program advisor.
1. At least twenty-four (24) credit hours must be earned in technical courses.
2. At least nine (9) credit hours must be earned from a major track.
3. At least three (3) credit hours must be earned in mathematics or qualitative methods course if required by the department
4. At most six (6) credit hours may be earned in Winter Enhancement (WE) courses.
5. At most six (6) credit hours may be earned in directed research projects.
The final cumulative grade point average must be at least 3.0.
Cognates:
In order to ensure sufficient breadth of study, master’s and doctoral students must satisfy a cognate requirement of at last one graduate course for a minimum of 3 hours of credit in areas outside one’s own field.
Course Transfer and Equivalency:
Graduate credit hours taken from any KAUST program may be applied to other KAUST graduate programs. Graduate courses taken from another university or KAUST program that are equivalent in level and content to the designated courses in a major track maybe counted toward meeting the major track requirement if their equivalence is confirmed by the program chair.
Policy for Adding and Dropping Courses:
A course may be added during the first week of the semester. Students may add courses after the first week with the permission of the instructor. Instructors have the right to refuse admission to students if the instructor feels that the student will not have the time to sufficiently master the material due to adding late. A course may be dropped without penalty or changed to visitor status at any time during the first two weeks of the semester. Between the second and eighth week, students can drop a course but the course will appear on the student’s transcript with the grade of “W” (withdraw). After the eighth week of a full semester, courses may be dropped only under exceptional circumstances and with the approval of the course instructor, the program chair and the registrar.