Independent Study

In order to begin an Independent Study, you must come to an agreement with a faculty member who is willing to serve as the project sponsor. The faculty sponsor must either be a full-time McKelvey Engineering faculty member or affiliated with the Mechanical Engineering & Materials Science department.

All registrations for E37 400/500 Independent Study must have prior approval of a faculty sponsor, student's faculty advisor, and the MEMS Department Chair. Independent Study petitions are generally considered for approval in the semester preceding the Independent Study experience. In no case will registration for an Independent Study be approved after the last day to add a class in that semester.

In cooperation with the faculty sponsor, the student will prepare for their Independent Study.

1. Register for the amount of units you and your sponsor have discussed. (Reminder: students who are completing BS or BS/MS programs should register for MEMS 400. All other graduate students should register for MEMS 500.)
2. Once you register, you will be placed on a waitlist until your Independent Study has been approved.
3. Complete the Independent Study petition and submit for appropriate approvals.
   1. In Section D or E in the proposal, you need to state that your grade will be based on a written report summarizing your results or progress on the project. The report should be submitted to the Department as well as to your faculty sponsor (PDF is preferred). It will be kept on file with your petition.
   2. In Section E, you should specify that you will meet weekly or bi-weekly with your faculty sponsor to go over results and plan the next steps of the project.
   3. In Section E, you should specify that you will spend 8-10 hours per week for a 3-credit Independent Study course.
   4. The Independent Study petition form must provide enough detail that an educated, non-expert can understand the basic problem or topic, the methods to be used, and the results you hope to obtain.
4. Complete the Open Scholarship Consent Form and submit to the Department with your Independent Study petition.
5. After all approvals have been made to the petition and the Open Scholarship consent form is received, you will receive an email notifying you that your Independent Study petition is approved and you will be removed from the waitlist. A copy of your Independent Study petition will be scanned and emailed to you for your records.
6. At the end of the semester, all MEMS Independent Study students are required to submit their final reports to the MEMS Independent Study Collection. (In order to submit your work into the Open Scholarship collection, you must have a consent form on file.) This must be done before you can receive your final grade.
7. At the end of the semester, please submit your Independent Study final report to your faculty sponsor. (See sponsor for exact due date.)