Grad School Course Requirements Below are two key Graduate School rules regarding coursework requirements for graduate degrees. As a practical matter, most of our students satisfy these rules easily, as explained below. 20-hour rule (16-hour rule if you have a MS): Doctoral students must take 16 or more hours of 8000- and 9000-level courses, not including 9000 (research) or 9300 (dissertation writing). The doctoral program of study for a student who bypasses the master's degree must contain four additional hours of UGA courses open only to graduate students, which usually means 8000-level coursework, but may include 7000 or 6000-level courses. Most 6000-level courses do not count, because they are open to undergraduates. Exceptions may include MIBO 6010 (lab meeting), which can count in a semester when no undergraduates enrolled. For practical purposes, most of our students will easily meet the 20-hour rule. The typical student in our curriculum takes the following classes that count toward the 20-hour rule: 8150 (1 hour), 8900 (6 hours), 8160 (3 hours), 8170 (2 hours), 8620, 8630, 8640 (3 hours), and 8610 (3 hours). Those total 18 hours. Thus, usually only one other elective of at least 2 hours is sufficient to meet this requirement. NOTE: We have requested that students who were steered toward MIBO6450 in 2010 and 2011 be allowed to count those hours toward the 20-hour rule. The Grad school has requested that we not try to count MIBO6450 in the future. 30-hour rule: Residency rules require 30 hours in the program and at least one course graded A-F. Note: This rule cannot be bent even for transfer students. The residence requirement for the Doctor of Philosophy degree is interpreted as 30 hours of consecutive graduate course work that is included on the program of study. Courses listed under the category "Other Departmental Requirements" do not count as part of the residence requirement (e.g., MIBO7770), but they do not constitute a break in residence if they are the only hours taken during a given semester. A maximum of three hours of dissertation writing (9300) and fifteen hours of 9000 may be included toward the required residence. A typical student in our curriculum meets this requirement easily. Having met the 20-hour rule, a student adds 3 hours of 9300 and therefore needs only 7 hours of 9000 research to reach thirty hours. Most of our students are well over this requirement.
