Master of Engineering Management and Leadership (MEML) Degree

MEML Degree

Upon completing the MEML degree, students will be able to:

1. Employ ethical-technical decision making; understand the susceptibility of engineering teams and organizations to ethical failure and devise creative technical solutions that are constrained by ethics-based boundaries.
2. Lead and manage engineering teams; excel at hybrid communications (i.e. to both technical and non-technical persons), managing projects, leading engineering teams, and inspiring people.
3. Evaluate the economic viability of technology products and ideas; apply key principles of engineering entrepreneurship to determine if a technical product or idea is valuable and economically viable.
4. Solve advanced engineering problems; have a graduate-level understanding of key disciplinary engineering courses. Engineering leaders will lead teams of engineers in a way that leverages the varying degrees of engineering training, from the undergraduate to graduate level. They should have a fundamental understanding and appreciation for the deeper technical skills that graduate-level engineers add to a team.

MEML Degree

MEML degree is a non-thesis master's degree. For general university requirements, please see Non-Thesis Master's Degrees. For additional requirements, regulations, and procedures for all graduate programs, please see All Graduate Students. Students pursuing MEML degree must complete:

• A minimum of 50 courses (30-32 credit hours, depending on course selection) to satisfy degree requirements.
• A minimum of 30 credit hours of graduate-level study (graduate semester credit hours, coursework at 500-level or above). 
• A minimum of 24 graduate semester credit hours must be taken at Rice University.
• A minimum of 24 graduate semester credit hours must be taken in standard or traditional courses (with a course type of lecture, seminar, laboratory, lecture/laboratory). 
• A minimum residency enrollment of one fall or spring semester of part-time graduate study at Rice University.
• A maximum of 6 credit hours from graduate semester credit hours as transfer credit. For additional program guidelines regarding transfer credit, see Policies tab.
• one area of specialization (see below for areas of specialization). MEML degree program offers ten areas of specialization:
  • Bioengineering, or
  • Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, or
  • Civil and Environmental Engineering, or 
  • Computational and Applied Mathematics, or
  • Computer Science, or
  • Data Science, or
  • Electrical and Computer Engineering, or
  • Materials Science and Nanoengineering, or
  • Mechanical Engineering, or
  • Statistics.
• A minimum overall GPA of 2.67 or higher in all Rice coursework.
• A minimum program GPA of 3.00 or higher in all Rice coursework that satisfies non-thesis master’s degree.

Students in MEML degree program and in either of two cohorts (on-campus or online) will be allowed to take up to 3 courses (9 credit hours) in other modality (online or on-campus) with permission from Engineering Management and Leadership Program Advisor.

courses listed below satisfy this degree program. In certain instances, courses not on this official list may be substituted upon approval of program's academic advisor, or where applicable, department or program's Director of Graduate Studies. Course substitutions must be formally applied and entered into Degree Works by department or program's Official Certifier. Additionally, these must be approved by Office of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies. Students and their academic advisors should identify and clearly document courses to be taken.

The English Language Proficiency Requirement may be waived for an international student who received a degree from an institution in which English is the official language of communication. Contact the admitting program for more information.

The following language proficiency tests are accepted by Rice graduate programs and will be used to assess English language proficiency. Please note the below scores are the minimum requirement, though some program requirements will be higher.

• The TOEFL IBT Home. A minimum score of 90 is required
• IELTS Indicator. A minimum score of 7 is required.
• Duolingo. A minimum score of 115 is required.

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