Normally, students spend one and one-half to two years working on the M.S. degree. The Master Student Program permits accelerated progress towards a M.S. degree by allowing the student to begin satisfying M.S. course and research requirements while still an undergraduate.
Students earn six to twelve credit hours of graduate credit in their senior year.
These courses will satisfy one fourth to one half of the M.S. course requirements. This is made possible when the normal senior year requirements are completed early by earning advanced placement credit prior to enrollment at UT, by taking overload semesters, by attending summer school, by attending mini-terms or by taking UT correspondence courses. Students in the Master Student Program begin work on their research in the summer after their Junior year. They are hired by the Department to work full-time on a project which will eventually be the student's thesis research project. The Master Student Program is restricted to students with outstanding academic performance.