Product Development Engineering (MS)

The Master of Science in product development engineering (MS PDE) is an interdisciplinary graduate degree program at USC jointly offered by the Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering and the Daniel J. Epstein Industrial and Systems Engineering (ISE) departments. The Daniel J. Epstein Industrial and Systems department manages this joint degree program. Students can enter this program in either the fall or spring semesters, and it is available to full-time and part-time students.

Admission

The program has the following admission requirements:

• A bachelor’s degree in an area of engineering or science;
• An undergraduate cumulative GPA of 3.0 or above; and
• Satisfactory general GRE scores of at least 146 verbal and 151 quantitative.

The MS PDE program requires a minimum of 27 units to complete. Although it is mainly a course work-based program, students can choose to complete the program with or without a thesis requirement. For the thesis option, 4 of the 27 units are to be thesis. At least 16 units, not including thesis, must be at the 500 level or higher, and at least 18 units must be from the AME and ISE departments. For the non-thesis option, 18 of the 27 units must be at the 500 level or higher from the AME and ISE departments, and/or closely related departments. Students may choose to take up to 6 units of directed research (e.g., AME 590  or ISE 590 ). Students must maintain a minimal cumulative GPA of 3.0 in USC course work to graduate.

The program’s prerequisite is a minimum of one 400 level course in either engineering design or engineering economy. Admitted students who do not meet this prerequisite will be assigned appropriate USC course(s) to complete the deficiencies. Deficiency courses, if taken at the 400 level, may be counted toward 27 units as general electives with adviser approval.

Depending on the academic background and career interests of students, the program offers two areas of specialization, product development technology and product development systems. The product development technology specialization will prepare students for a career as future product development engineers, while the product development systems specialization will prepare students as future product development managers. Students entering this program must declare their choice of an area of specialization and follow the requirements of each area of specialization to graduate.