Tuition Fee
Start Date
Medium of studying
Duration
Program Facts
Program Details
Degree
PhD
Major
Petroleum Engineering
Area of study
Engineering
Course Language
English
About Program
Program Overview
The Ph.D. in Petroleum Engineering program at The University of Tulsa prepares graduates for careers as researchers, university professors, and scientists in the petroleum industry or academia. The program requires 78 credit hours of coursework, including a dissertation, and emphasizes proficiency in professional skills, advanced engineering systems design, and ethical awareness. Admission is competitive, with applicants typically exceeding minimum requirements in GPA, GRE scores, and research interests.
Program Outline
Degree Overview:
The Ph.D. degree represents the highest degree awarded by universities in the United States. The Ph.D. degree usually requires coursework beyond that required by a master’s degree program in the same discipline, but is primarily characterized by the Ph.D. dissertation requirement. The Ph.D. dissertation should contain significant original research and material suitable for publication as a refereed manuscript or manuscripts, normally as a research journal article or articles. The recipient of a Ph.D. degree should possess a broad knowledge of his or her discipline and should be prepared for a lifetime of creative intellectual inquiry. The Ph.D. dissertation should establish the candidate’s ability to read and comprehend the literature, to independently formulate a significant intellectual problem, to formulate the solution to the problem utilizing state-of-the-art knowledge and creativity, and to communicate the findings in a lucid, professional document, the Ph.D. dissertation.
Learning Outcomes:
Doctor of Philosophy graduates are expected to:
- Demonstrate proficiency in the professional skills needed to become competent researchers, university professors, and scientists in petroleum industry and/or academia.
- Synthesize, critique, apply, and extend major theories and methods and/or perform advanced engineering systems design in petroleum engineering or related area.
- Demonstrate the ability to direct teams towards state-of-the-art in their research.
- Demonstrate high standards of ethical, environmental, and societal awareness.
- Demonstrate effective written and oral communication skills.
Outline:
Admission Requirements:
- Requirements for admission to the Graduate School, including English proficiency, may be found in the Admission section of this Bulletin.
- In addition, applicants to the doctoral program in petroleum engineering must have a baccalaureate degree in engineering, physics, or mathematics from an accredited institution. Applicants with a baccalaureate degree in a field other than petroleum engineering may be required to take additional deficiency classes in the areas of reservoir engineering, production engineering and drilling engineering.
- Students with baccalaureate degrees may be considered for admission to the Ph.D. program provided that the student’s academic record satisfies the following conditions:
- An undergraduate G.P.A. of 3.5 or greater;
- A composite G.P.A. of 3.5 or greater in mathematics, science, engineering science, and engineering undergraduate courses taken as an undergraduate; and
- A quantitative GRE score greater than or equal to 160.
- The preceding requirements are considered minimal and do not guarantee direct admission to the Ph.D. program.
- At the discretion of the graduate advisor, the requirements for international students regarding grade point average may be replaced by a rank in the top five percent of the student’s graduating class or the top ten percent of the student’s graduating class provided the student’s baccalaureate degree is from a university from which other students have been admitted into the Ph.D. program.
- A student without a master’s degree who is admitted into the Ph.D. program must:
- Maintain at least a 3.5 G.P.A. in the first 18 hours of graduate work at the 7000- or 8000-level, and
- Complete the Ph.D. qualifying exams and attain a pass or repeat result within two years of his or her first enrollment.
- Candidates who fail to meet the preceding two requirements will be dismissed from the Ph.D. program but have the option of transferring to the master’s program.
- Any student who is admitted to the master’s degree program may apply to the Ph.D. program after completion of 18 hours of graduate coursework at the 7000-level or above provided the student’s G.P.A. in such coursework is at least 3.5.
- All applicants must take the General Tests of the Graduate Record Examination prior to admission and have an official copy of the scores submitted to the Graduate School.
- It is emphasized that the above requirements are minimum requirements. It is expected that the qualifications of students entering the program will substantially exceed the minimum requirements. A student who meets only the minimum requirements in each of the above areas will, normally, be denied admission.
- The number of candidates in this program, both part-time and full-time, is limited. Normally, part-time students are not admitted to this program. Applicants must designate their major fields of research interest.
- Applicants usually are selected for admission by February 1 and September 1, but will be considered throughout the year.
- Applicants from non-English-speaking countries who have not received a degree from a U.S. university must satisfy English proficiency requirements of a minimum TOEFL score of 80 on the internet-based test or 550 on the paper test. A minimum score of 6.0 on the IELTS examination may be substituted for the TOEFL.
Curriculum Requirements:
- The Ph.D. program requires at least 78 approved credit hours of graduate credit above the baccalaureate level, generally distributed in the following manner:
- At least 20 credit hours of research and dissertation including master’s degree thesis.
- At least 42 hours of graduate credit in coursework, including a maximum of nine hours of approved 6000-level courses listed in this Bulletin for graduate credit. A maximum of six hours of independent study will be allowed. The core courses, PE 7013 , PE 7023 , and PE 7063 , must be included in the first 27 hours of graduate work.
- At least 12 credit hours of coursework must be taken outside the discipline.
- Students may be required to complete prerequisite undergraduate courses without graduate credit, resulting in a program of more than 78 credit hours. No more than 6 hours of transfer credit beyond the master’s degree from an accredited institution may be counted toward the course requirements if acceptable to the advisory committee.
- These requirements are not variable except under special circumstances and with permission of the student’s advisory committee and the Dean of the Graduate School.
Graduate Seminar Requirement:
- Students must also enroll in PE 7220 their first two semesters, in addition to any other courses chosen with the graduate program advisor.
Language and Residence:
- A candidate for the Ph.D. degree in petroleum engineering must demonstrate competence in a computer language and/or in one foreign language through readings of material in his or her major field of study. Material for this requirement is selected with the approval of the candidate’s advisory committee. At least two consecutive semesters in residence at The University of Tulsa as a full-time student are required.
Qualifying Examinations:
- The Ph.D. qualifying exams are designed to indicate whether a student has the intellectual creativity necessary to do Ph.D. research. Problems on a Ph.D. qualifying exam should be different from problems that the students taking the exam have seen before.
- Questions on Ph.D. qualifying exams presume background knowledge normally held by the holder of a B.S. degree in petroleum engineering who has also taken undergraduate courses in partial differential equations and either linear algebra or matrix theory. Questions may also assume that the examinee has taken the core courses PE 7013 , PE 7023 , and PE 7063 .
- Students wishing to take Ph.D. qualifying exams must inform the department chair in writing four weeks prior to the exam week. The exams will normally be administered once a year; immediately preceding the first week of the fall semester.
- The Ph.D. qualifying exams consist of three four-hour exams. Each of the three exams consists of six questions and the examinee is asked to solve exactly four questions on each exam. Each full-time petroleum engineering faculty member will prepare two or three questions upon the request of the Chair of the McDougall School of Petroleum Engineering .
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