Plan I Thesis Option

You must write and successfully defend a thesis worth 6 of the 36 credit hours required for the MS degree.

Natalie Mladenov collecting water samples in Africa.

Required Credit Hours

Plan I requires that you write and successfully defend a thesis worth 6 of the 36 credit hours required for the MS degree. Overall, the degree requires completion of 36 credit hours as follows: 9 hours of a common core focused on science, policy and philosophy; 9-15 hours of a secondary core focused on developing substantive and methodological expertise; and 12-18 hours of electives chosen to broaden and deepen the graduate training.

Thesis Committee

The candidate for the MS degree, with the approval of the faculty advisor, must assemble a three-member thesis defense committee that should include an outside member from the appropriate environmental field. The Graduate Coordinator reports the names of the committee members and the date of the thesis defense to the Graduate School on the Master’s Examination Report form at least two weeks prior to the defense date. It is important to stay in touch with the Graduate Coordinator about the committee composition since all committee members need to be checked for Graduate Faculty appointments that take at least a month to process.

Thesis

The thesis must be an original research paper that is presented to the student’s thesis defense committee and defended in line with the deadlines posted each semester by the Graduate School in order to be considered for graduation. The thesis represents 6 semester hours of work and must comply with the specifications for theses and dissertations available in the Graduate School. All theses must be submitted electronically by the posted Graduate School deadline. The thesis signature page with two committee members' signatures must be submitted in hard copy to the Graduate School. The final grade is withheld until the thesis is completed; if the thesis is not finished at the end of the term in which the student is registered, an in-progress (IP) grade is reported.

See the Research > Theses page for examples of past M.S. theses.

After the Defense

After the thesis has been successfully defended, the student:

  • Must be sure that the signaturel page with the original signatures of the chair of the examining committee and at least one other committee member is submitted to the Graduate School.

  • Electronically submit the thesis to ProQuest according to the Graduate School instructions.