Course & breadth requirements

Students in the Ph.D. program without a M.S. degree and students in the Ph.D. program who have an ECE M.S. degree from Carnegie Mellon must take a total of 8 ECE or related courses (96 units) at Carnegie Mellon. At least 6 of these 8 courses must be graduate courses. Courses taken at Carnegie Mellon to satisfy the M.S. degree course requirements may count toward the Ph.D. course requirements.

Students in the Ph.D. program who have earned a M.S. degree elsewhere (outside of CMU's ECE Department) must take a total of 4 ECE or related courses (48 units) at Carnegie Mellon. At least 3 of these 4 courses must be graduate courses.

For students who do not yet have an ECE M.S. degree, courses taken at Carnegie Mellon to satisfy the ECE Ph.D. degree course requirements may count toward the ECE M.S. course requirements.

Graduate courses include any of ECE's graduate courses listed the ECE Course List page and courses, as well as those listed on the Ph.D. Breadth Area Courses page. To count towards the Ph.D. requires, a course cannot be project, seminar or independent study courses. A student can only take up to 2 undergraduate courses to fulfill the course requirement and these 2 courses must be in the ECE Department at a 300 level. Students must receive a "B-" grade or better in both the graduate and undergraduate courses."

Students who joined the PhD program in Fall 2022 and prior, and have taken graduate level courses in the CMU Computer Science (CS) Department, should send an email to Greta Ruperto to discuss. Note that these courses will still count toward your degree requirements. 

Students wishing to count a graduate course at Carnegie Mellon not listed in the approved graduate course list or on the breadth website, or an undergraduate course offered by a department outside of ECE or CSD at Carnegie Mellon, must formally petition the Graduate Studies Committee.

Breadth requirement

The ECE Department has defined 7 technical areas as Breadth Areas for the Ph.D. degree. Each Ph.D. candidate must take at least 1 graduate class from 3 of these areas to fulfill the breadth requirement. Students must receive a "B-" grade or better in these courses.

Students can count 1 course that they have taken outside Carnegie Mellon toward the breadth course requirement, but must submit a formal petition for approval by the Graduate Studies Committee. If the petition is accepted, only two more breadth areas must be satisfied. However, students will still be held to the same course requirements. 

Managing the course and breadth requirements

To ensure that each student is on track to meet these requirements, the Ph.D. Course and Breadth Requirement Form (included in the Graduate Progress Review Statement) should be filled out each semester, and academic progress should be discussed with the student's advisor.