A student has considerable freedom in planning their master's program. Guidelines for curriculum are established by each discipline group. The faculty has a great amount of formal training, practical experience, and ongoing research in the following areas: environmental engineering, water resources/coastal and ecological engineering, geotechnical engineering, structural engineering, mechanics of materials, and transportation engineering. Well-equipped laboratories in these and related areas are available for research. Graduate students normally specialize in one of these fields.There are two options leading to the master's in civil engineering degree. The thesis option requires the student to complete a minimum of twenty-five (25) hours of approved course work and to submit an acceptable thesis worth 6 hours. The non-thesis option requires the student to complete a minimum of thirty-four (34) hours of approved course work and submit a final project worth 3 hours. General guidelines for selecting courses in these two programs are given below.