Degrees in Operations Research / Industrial Engineering

A principal goal of the ORIE graduate program is to provide the student with the educational basis for continued learning and to impart the fundamental skills necessary to function effectively as a professional. At the master's level, we strive for a balance of theory and applications, relying heavily on the accumulated years of experience our faculty bring to the classroom. At the Ph.D. level, the emphasis shifts to research, enabling students to extend their field of knowledge and to develop analytic techniques that will serve them in their academic, industrial, or governmental careers. Although rigor is the mainstay at all levels, sufficient flexibility is built into the program to accommodate the needs and interests of most students. With a deep concern for the future, we feel that this formula works best for out students, our faculty, our industrial partners.

DEGREES

MASTER OF SCIENCE
In order to be successful at UT Austin and earn your Master's degree while enjoying your time here, you should start planning from the first day in the program. To help you plan, here are some points you will need to remember.

Options
The Graduate Program in ORIE offers three different Master's degree options:

The Thesis option consists of:
9 hours of required courses, (letter grade)
9 hours of additiional ORIE courses, (letter grade)
6 hours of courses in minor area (not ORIE),
6 hours of research and thesis writing (ORI 698A and ORI 698B)

The Report option consists of:
9 hours of required courses, (letter grade)
12 hours of additional ORIE courses, (letter grade)
6 hours of courses in minor area,
3 hours of research and report writing (ORI 398R)

The Course option consists of:
9 hours of required courses, (letter grade)
15 hours of ORIE courses, (letter grade)
6 hours of courses in minor area

Required Courses:
• ORI 390R.1 Applied Probability
• ORI 390R.2 Mathematical Statistics
• ORI 391Q.5 Linear Programming

These required core courses must be taken from the ORIE faculty. If you do not have a background in ORIE and have never been exposed to ORIE modeling, you are strongly encouraged to register for our undergraduate course Operations Research Models (ME 366L) during your first year.

Minor Courses:

Upper division undergraduate or graduate courses in other departments are appropriate as supporting courses. These courses must be pre-approved by the Graduate Advisor and only these courses, with prior approval of the Graduate Advisor may be taken on a credit/no credit basis. The Seminar course will not be approved as a supporting course.

Minor courses must be approved by the Graduate Advisor prior to registration.

All students are expected to elect the thesis or report option. Those wishing to select the course option must obtain approval from the Graduate Advisor.

Seminar:

Seminars have the goal to expand students and faculty knowledge in the field. Every master's student is asked to register for the Seminar course once a year. However, all students are expected to attend every seminar unless conflicts arise.

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
The graduate program in ORIE expects all doctoral students to go through these three steps:

Qualifying Exam (with written and oral parts, taken typically within the first two years in the program)
Admission to Candidacy (requires the creation of doctoral committee)
Dissertation Defense

The Qualifying exam is over two major parts: Deterministic and Stochastic.

Guidelines:
Doctoral students are expected to master the material of a wide range of topics. Students will be required to complete at least 24 credit hours of courses approved by the Graduate Advisor. The following 5 core courses will not count towards the 24 credit hours:

ORI 390R.1: Applied Probability
ORI 390R.2: Mathematical Statistics
ORI 390R.5: Applied Stochastic Processes
ORI 391Q.4: Integer Programming
ORI 391Q.5: Linear Programming