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The requirements for the course-based M.S. consist of the following:

  • Minimum of 30 graduate credits taken (course number 500 or higher);
  • At least 21 of the credits must be in Physics;
  • At least 12 of the Physics credits shall be at the 600-level or higher.
  • At least 21 of the total credits must be for a letter grade, and the GPA must be at least 3.0.  Note that the Graduate Program Director must provide approval before a course may be taken as Pass/Fail;
  • Independent Study credits are allowed, up to a maximum of 6 credits.  All Independent Study credits must be approved by the Physics Graduate Program Director, who will ask that a comprehensive plan be drawn to ensure that the credits earned reflect a sufficiently high level of study or training and that the means of evaluating performance are appropriate;
  • A maximum of 6 credits of graduate-level coursework taken at UMass or at another institution can be transferred to the UMass M.S. program.  Courses taken as Pass/Fail cannot be transferred and the minimum grade for transferable credits is a B. There are important other limitations to how the transferred credits can be used: please see Graduate School's Graduate Student Handbook for more details (see the section on Education Records for transfer credit policies).
  • For the Accelerated M.S. (4+1) program, available to UMass students only, up to 12 credits may be transferred; up to 6 of these credits can be used for both the MS and the Bachelor's degree.

Also note that for coursework outside of the Physics Department, up to 2 courses at the 400 level can be used towards your degree, subject to approval by the GPD.

See the list of Master's Degree Requirements at the Graduate School site, especially the Master's Degree checklist.

More information and sample programs of study can be found in the Physics Graduate Program Handbook.