IME PhD Program Requirements

The GRE requirement has been waived (and extended) for all engineering master’s applicants applying through Fall 2026!

The PhD program prepares students to enter and excel in the rapidly changing, highly technical, and global marketplace. As globalization and technology continue to revolutionize the face and direction of engineering, the demand for new leaders with the skills and expertise to respond creatively to these challenges will only increase.

 

The BS - PhD program is designed with the highly motivated and diligent student in mind. This route provides a fast track for well-rounded students to bypass the MSIE degree and receive their doctorate in Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering in a relatively short time.

Entry Requirements

Students should possess a baccalaureate degree in engineering, science, or mathematics with a minimum GPA of 3.4 on a 4.0 scale. The average GRE scores are 155 (Quantitative) + 154 (Verbal) [720 (Quantitative) + 500 (Verbal) in the old scale]. Three favorable letters of recommendation are required.

Candidacy Requirements

Once admitted, students will be required to take up to 24 credit hours of course work before they are eligible for doctoral candidacy. This course requirement will be determined on an individual basis by the student's doctoral committee. The students who entered the program with a BS degree or an MS degree with no thesis are required to take a 3 credit hour Review Paper Directed Independent Study (RPD), which is intended to allow students to demonstrate their ability to conduct a literature review and display their understanding of the theoretical framework as directed by the doctoral committee. Throughout the duration of study, the student must maintain a grade of 'B' or higher in every course. Additionally, the semester-to-semester GPA must not fall below 3.4.

As part of the candidacy requirements, the students must demonstrate a thorough understanding of the following core courses, which consist of 18 credit hours:

 

Industrial Engineering Core (IEC) - 12 Credit Hours Hours Semester
IEC1 - ESI 5525: Modeling and analysis of Manufacturing and Industrial Systems 3 Fall
IEC2 - ESI 5247: Engineering Experiments 3 Spring
IEC3 - ESI 5408/ESI 5412: Applied Optimization 3 Spring
IEC4 - EIN 5930-02: Research Methodology 3  
PhD Core (Select one from each PHC group) - 6 Credit Hours Hours Semester
PHC 1: Mathematics Course Group (3hrs) 3  
MAA 5306: Advanced Calculus I 3  
MAP 5345: Elementary Partial Differential Equations 1 3  
STA 5323: Intro to Mathematical Statistics 3  
PHC 2: Computational Course Group (3hrs) 3  
MAD 5403: Foundation of Computational Methods I 3  
EIN 5930: Finite Element Methods 3  
STA 5106: Computational Statistics I 3  

The student may also be required to fulfill additional course requirements (PHA group), depending upon the goals of the doctoral committee. The make-up of these courses (PHA group) is at the discretion of the doctoral committee and is intended to enhance the student's fundamental knowledge in the chosen research area. The credit hours resulting from these courses will normally run between zero to six hours. The following is a flow chart outlining the requirements for the BS - PhD program. Once the necessary course work is complete, the student must successfully complete the Preliminary Examination (prelim exam) in order to achieve doctoral candidacy status, and then complete 24 dissertation hours to be eligible for graduation.

The student will be expected begin a search for a research topic/area upon admission. This will enable the completion of the 3 credit hour RPD course in time for the prelim exam.

The previous chart is color coded to illustrate a student's route to doctoral candidacy once admitted into the BS - PhD program. According to this chart, which presumes a fall semester start, the students will complete the IE and PhD core courses by the spring semester. By their third semester (fall) (Note: Summer term is not considered in this semester count), they will submit a detailed literature review report to their committee for grades in the RPD course. In that semester and beyond, the student will take any additional course requirements set by their committee (PHA). However, this cannot extend beyond the student's fourth semester in the program. At a predetermined point in the third or fourth semester, the student must take the prelim exam. The student will be allowed to attempt the prelim exam only twice.

The following chart shows a student's route to doctoral candidacy based on a spring semester start. Again, the prelim exam must be taken by the fourth semester.

 

Timeline of PhD requirements

A suggested timeline of certain PhD requirements can be found at: https://eng.famu.fsu.edu/ime/graduate/phd/suggested-timeline.

Remark about requirements

The requirements outlined in this page are effective to all current IME PhD students, regardless of their date of entry to the program.