Graduate Programs

• Our graduates will use their highly competitive skills in a range of engineering career paths to become leaders in the energy industry.
• Our graduates will seek out continuing education opportunities, striving for technical excellence.
• Our graduates will leverage evolving technology through collaborative engagement in both industry workshops and professional societies.

An MS degree with thesis requires a minimum of 30 credit hours. In order to meet these requirements, students must use the following criteria to develop their degree plan.

a)  At least 12 credits must be taken as regular*  500 level petroleum graduate courses. All students must take a minimum of one regular course from two of the following categories:

• Formation Evaluation
• Drilling Engineering
• Reservoir Engineering
• Production Engineering

  * Courses are considered regular only if a course title and scheduled meeting time are specified and the course is open to all qualified department students.

b) All students must take a minimum of 6 credit hours of regular 500 level graduate or upper division courses approved by the department chair, taken outside of petroleum engineering**  in either engineering or science disciplines.

 ** Students with degrees in disciplines other than Petroleum Engineering have taken sufficient courses in their previous major to satisfy this depth requirement and therefore may take an additional 6 credits of petroleum engineering courses instead.

c)  A maximum of 3 credit hours of directed study***  in PET 581.

*** Directed study is eligible only if taken for a letter grade.

d) A maximum of 6 credit hours of research in PET 591.

e) Registration in Graduate Seminar, PET 570, is required to maintain a student's academic good standing.

Students may not receive credit towards their degree for courses taken at New Mexico Tech that have a course content equivalent to a course that was used to satisfy the requirements of another degree. The department chairman and advisor will decide whether or not these courses have essentially the same content.

Graduate Committee

The student's committee is made up of at least three members. Two members, including the committee chairman, must be regular Petroleum Department faculty and one member must be outside of the regular department faculty. If the student is performing research primarily under the supervision of a faculty member that is not a member of the regular Petroleum Department faculty, this faculty member may co-chair the student's committee. Note that adjunct PRRC personnel are not regular departmental faculty and therefore are eligible to be the outside member.

An MS degree without thesis requires a minimum of 36 credit hours. In order to meet these requirements, students must use the following criteria to develop their degree plan.

a) At least 18 credits must be taken as regular* 500 level petroleum graduate courses. All students must take a minimum of one regular course from two of the following categories:

• Formation Evaluation
• Drilling Engineering
• Reservoir Engineering
• Production Engineering

  * Courses are considered regular only if a course title and scheduled meeting time are specified and the course is open to all qualified department students.

b) All students must take a minimum of 6 credit hours of regular 500 level graduate or upper division courses approved by the department chair, taken outside of petroleum engineering** in either engineering or science disciplines.

** Students with degrees in disciplines other than Petroleum Engineering have taken sufficient courses in their previous major to satisfy this depth requirement and therefore may take an additional 6 credits of petroleum engineering courses instead.

c) A maximum of 3 credit hours of directed study*** in PET 581.

*** Directed study is eligible only if taken for a letter grade.

d) A maximum of 6 credit hours of independent study in PET 590.

e) Registration in Graduate Seminar, PET 570, is required to maintain a student's academic good standing.

Students may not receive credit towards their degree for courses taken at New Mexico Tech that have a course content equivalent to a course that was used to satisfy the requirements of another degree. The department chairman and advisor will decide whether or not these courses have essentially the same content.

Graduate Committee

The role of the student's graduate committee is to approve a course of study for the student, to recommend to the student to change to the thesis option, and to review and evaluate the formal paper and presentation required for the independent study. By recommendation of the advisory committee a student may change to a M.S. with thesis option by the end of the second semester (not including summer session).

This committee is composed of a committee chairman within the Petroleum Engineering Department Faculty, an internal reviewer within the department and an external reviewer outside of the department. A formal paper will be submitted and presented to the committee for review.

• Grad Student Checklist, Masters, Thesis
•  Grad Student Checklist, Masters, Independent Study

New Mexico Tech courses taken to satisfy this requirement must have content different from courses applied to previous degrees. In addition to the department administered preliminary examination, the student is required to successfully complete a candidacy examination and a defense of the dissertation administered by the student’s advisory committee.

• Our graduates will use their highly competitive skills in a range of engineering career paths to become leaders in the energy industry.
• Our graduates will seek out continuing education opportunities, striving for technical excellence.
• Our graduates will leverage evolving technology through collaborative engagement in both industry workshops and professional societies.

In order to be admitted to the PhD program, a student must meet the requirements as set forth by the Graduate Program and have completed an M.S. degree with a thesis. A minimum of 60 credit hours past the master’s degree is required.  The following criteria are provided to develop and complete their degree plan:

a) At least 30 credits must be a combination of regular*  courses and Directed Study (581). At least 12 of the 30 credits must be taken as regular 500 level petroleum engineering graduate courses.

* Courses are considered regular only if a course title and scheduled meeting time are specified and the course is open to all qualified department students.

 

b) All students must take a minimum of 6 credit hours (in addition to the M.S. requirement), taken outside of petroleum engineering** in either engineering or science disciplines.

** Students with degrees in disciplines other than Petroleum Engineering have taken sufficient courses in their previous major to satisfy this depth requirement and therefore may take an additional 6 credits of petroleum engineering courses instead.

 

c) A maximum of 9 credit hours of Directed Study, PE 581.

1. Directed study may not be included in the 12 credit minimum of 500 level petroleum graduate courses.
2. No more than 6 hours of Directed Study offered by the same professor may be included in the degree plan.

d) A minimum of 24 credit hours and maximum of 30 credit hours of research, PE 595.

e) Registration in Graduate Seminar, PET 570, is required to maintain a student's academic good standing.

Students may not receive credit toward their degree for courses taken at New Mexico Tech that have a course content equivalent to a course that was used to satisfy the requirements of another degree. The department chairman and advisor will decide whether or not these courses have essentially the same content.

The student's committee is composed of at least four members. A minimum of two members, including the committee chairman, must be regular Petroleum Department faculty and one member must be outside of the regular department faculty and the PRRC personnel. If the student is performing research primarily under the supervision of a faculty member that is not a member of the regular Petroleum Department faculty, this faculty member may co-chair the student's committee. Note that adjunct PRRC personnel are not considered regular departmental faculty.

 

 

The purpose of the preliminary examination is to test the student's knowledge of undergraduate fundamentals in Petroleum Engineering. The Ph.D. student must take this examination at the latest after the end of the first year of the student's enrollment in the Ph.D. program. Students with degrees in fields other than Petroleum Engineering must complete all "Additional Requirements" listed in Section 5 and take the examination no later than the end of the second year of their enrollment. The exam will be scheduled twice a year, prior to the beginning of the Fall and Spring Semesters. These times can be adjusted at the discretion of the Graduate Program Coordinator.  A student must notify the Graduate Program Coordinator of his/her intention of taking the examination within the first month of the semester prior to the exam. If the above time-lines cannot be met, the student should submite  postponement request form to to the graduate program coordinator for an extension. After consultation with the student’s research and/or academic advisor, the Graduate Program Coordinator will inform the student of the decision to delay the exam in two weeks after submission of the request.

The Graduate Program Coordinator will:

• inform all graduate students of the requirements and policies of the Petroleum Engineering program
• inform the research and/or academic advisor of the student request for taking the exam or exception.
• Coordinat the exam schedule between the students and faculty providing exam sections
• Administ the exam, collecting the results and presenting the outcome to the PE faculty

 The examination is a written examination of the following five basic subjects:

The grade on each subject will be PASS or FAIL determined by the faculty giving the test. Overall pass/fail criteria, consequences, and the required actions, if necessary, for the student, faculty, and department are:

Pass: Pass all five subjects.

Conditional Pass: Fail any one of the five subjects. The student is required to do make-up work for the failed subject. The faculty member responsible for the subject needs to:

• determine the nature of the make-up work (e.g., retaking the course, directed study, ...),
• inform the academic advisor and chairman of the department about the nature of the make-up work, and
• provide a pass/fail grade to the department chairman after the completion of the make-up work. If the student fails again, the entire preliminary examination is equivalent to "Fail" as described below.
• Studnet will recive the conditional pass form, signed by the faculty member responsible for the subject and the graduate program coordinator. 

Fail: Fail any two or more categories. The student is required to repeat the entire examination at the next scheduled time. If a student fails the examination a second time, the department will terminate his/her continuing of the Ph.D. program.

The written examination will include questions and problems on petroleum engineering fundamentals and their applications as addressed in the core courses listed above. The examination will be prepared and administered by the regular Petroleum Engineering faculty under the supervision of the department chairman or his designate. Each professor is responsible for preparing and grading his or her portion of the exam.

The individual instructors decide upon the design of the questions for the test; however, the test time allocated for each category is approximately 3 hours and should be adhered to. The procedures of the test are determined by the department chairman or his designate and should be communicated to the students well in advance of the test.

Each instructor has one weeks from the day the exam question was given to grade and return the results to the chairman/designate. The chairman/designate has two weeks after that date to compile and present the results to the faculty for approval.

The Students have the opportunity to appeal their PhD preliminary examination result. To appeal, the student needs to complete and submit appeal form to the graduate program coordinator.

The preliminary examination must be cleared completely from the department to be eligible for Candidacy Examination.

The Petroleum Engineering Department requires a candidacy examination. The candidacy examination consists of two parts:

• Written research proposal and oral presentation and defense of the research proposal (and any preliminary research) (Part I)
• Comprehensive written and oral examination (Part II)

The candidacy exam may be taken after completion of one year of residency in the degree plan, but no later than one year before the student's dissertation defense. However, the student is advised to schedule the candidacy exam as soon as possible. If the student fails the exam after spending several semesters performing his research, this time will have been wasted. The oral portion of Part I is open to the public.

Each committee member can request a written and oral examination (Part II) of the candidate at the time of the proposal defense. This request can be waived by each of the members if he or she believes the candidate has sufficient knowledge to proceed to the dissertation. The candidate has up to two months to complete the assignment and meet with the committee member.

The decision on passing and admitting the student to Candidacy must be made unanimously by the student's advisory committee and the Department chairman and shall be provided in writing to the student within two weeks of the Part II presentation.

The doctoral dissertation recognizes the student's capabilities to perform independent research and provide the discipline with novel solutions to complex problems. Oral defense must be before the Tech faculty committee under the guidance of the student's advisory committee.

A minimum of 24 and a maximum of 30 hours of dissertation are permissible. A student can register for dissertation hours only after successfully completing the candidacy exam.

Requirements for manuscript preparation and submission can be found in the Graduate Program discussion of the New Mexico Tech catalog.

Grad Student Checklist, Ph.D