Exceptional students in Chemistry and Biochemistry, Research Tract, may be eligible to be accepted and enrolled in a combined baccalaureate and master ’s degree program. A student who has achieved an overall Grade Point Average (for qualifications, click here) of
may apply for early admission to the thesis basis-ed master’s degree program. Once accepted, the student most like will not need any graduate courses until he or she is in the senior year. In this year, the student will begin taking graduate courses, beginning with either Chemistry 550 Biochemical Structure and Function and Chemistry 551 Biocatalysis and Metabolism in replace of Chemistry 450-451 Biochemistry or Chemistry 540 Advanced Inorganic Chemistry in replace of the undergraduate course of the same name. Also, the research portion of the major, Chemistry 493-493 Undergraduate Research has been replaced by Chemistry 599, MA Thesis, and has been moved into the fifth year. Because of the research being moved, the expected undergraduate graduation will occur when the student has finished his or her graduate research. If, for some reason, the student decides to revert back to the four year program, it is possible to revert back by inserting the Chemistry 493-494 in the senior year.
In addition to the graduate studies, the student may want to take up a Graduate Assistantship, which the application can be accepted as early as the senior year. The Graduate Assistants help in the labs by teaching them and helping the students with their experiments. If accepted as a Graduate Assistant, the student will only teach labs which he or she have taken, not ones the student is currently taking or haven't taken.
In participating undergraduate programs, students may apply up to 12
of their accumulated graduate hours toward the completion of their
undergraduate degree requirements. The student’s undergraduate
program advisor will determine the undergraduate course work for
which graduate credits may be substituted. The selection of the
graduate course work and the number of credits to be applied toward
an undergraduate degree requires the approval of the student’s
undergraduate program advisor, the chair of the department housing
the student’s undergraduate program, the graduate program
director in the student’s academic discipline, the appropriate
dean who is responsible for the undergraduate program, and the Dean
of The Graduate School. If interested in more information, contact
Dr. Christopher Baumann, the director of the Graduate Program for
Chemistry and all its tracks.