Rice: Wiess School of Natural Sciences

Professional Master's Program: An Unconventional Career Track

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RICE University
Prof. Master's Program
6100 Main Street, MS-103
Houston, TX 77005
713.348.3188 (phone)
713.348.3121 (fax)
profms@rice.edu

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www.npsma.org

PMP Small Logo
www.sciencemasters.com

Initial Funding by the
Alfred P. Sloan Foundation

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Unlike traditional master's degrees, these degrees combine an interdisciplinary curriculum with business training and hands-on experience, enabling graduates to acquire a new "tool-set" for success in a business environment.

Why Rice's Professional Science Master's Program was right for me

What's New

Summer is here and the PSM office is busy at work preparing for the fall semester.

Seventeen students graduated this year, thirteen accepted job offers before and after graduation, the remaining 4 are presently in the job searching mode, and we are optimistic that they will find the right position for their career goals soon. We have a new group of 38 students joining us for the fall semester, and we are looking forward to welcoming them to Rice University.

Students have received summer reading selections, and will get more correspondence from our office over the summer to make sure they are prepared for starting at Rice with a focus on their professional growth and development.

Enrolled, second-year students are signed up for internships with a variety of internship providers this summer and fall. We thank Apache Corp., Halliburton/Landmark, ION Geophysical, Baker Hughes, INEXS, Element Markets, City of Houston, Nanoridge, RollsRoyce, Medical Informatics Corp., Institute for Public Health, Rice Baker Institute for Public Policy, and M.D. Anderson for helping our students to gain work experience.

New Initiatives in Professional Master's in Science and Engineering Education at Rice 

In collaboration with the School of Engineering, we continue our efforts to assist corporate professionals who are seeking to enrich their education by completing a master's degree at Rice. We are in the process of lecture capture to allow employed students easier access to lectures offered in their degree plans. Two courses are wrapping up this semester, two or three more are lined up for lecture capture in fall focused on courses designed for professional master's in Engineering. Not only will these captured lectures facilitate attendance of professionals taking our courses part-time whilst employed, but they will also have other benefits, such as:

  • Help international students when reviewing materials
  • Help faculty to gain more independence from classroom
  • Allow flipped-classroom teaching
Other new and on-going initiatives include continued efforts to improve the support we offer our international students include:
  • Summer English Reading Assignments
  • Cultural Immersion Workshop for International Students
  • Mentorship program between students
Addressing professional development and soft skills for our students has resulted in a collaboration with the Center of Engineering Leadership with the goal to create a leadership course for grad students. In addition, we are continuing our efforts to make  more communication courses available for science and engineering students.

With a focus on Rice undergrad students we are spreading the word about opportunities for Rice students to line their study plans up to create a pathway into our professional master's degree which - with good planning - they could finish in a 5th year of studies at Rice, completing their B.S. and their M.S. degrees back-to-back.

We also have seen a higher interest in our dual PSM/MBA tracks by incoming students who have to apply to both programs at the same time to be able to qualify for this opportunity.
 

Read the Spring 2013 PSM Newsletter  

If you need intelligent and hard-working interns for your projects, please contact us!

Become a friend of the PSM Facebook Site to see photos of all our recent activities.

Virtual Tour of School of Natural Science includes a feature on the Professional Master's Program! 

Latest article on PSM Programs!

Institute of Physics article (London) mentions Rice University and the PSM Program

Employers Info

 

2013 Baker Hughes Scholarships
Generous funding for scholarships was received from Baker Hughes at the end of 2012, providing a great Christmas gift for our incoming students for Fall 2013. Partial scholarships will be offered to highly qualified students interested in our program tracks in Subsurface Geoscience, Environmental Analysis and Nanoscale Physics. Students offered admission and accepting enrollment at Rice will be eligible to apply for these scholarships.

Thank you to all our supporters at Baker Hughes!

2013 Schlumberger Scholarships
The Rice PSM program thanks Schlumberger for their continued support of our students in the Subsurface Geoscience and the Nanoscale Physics tracks. Corporate recognition of our efforts to create an education tailor-made for their workforce needs is highly appreciated! Partial scholarships will be distributed in spring 2013.

2013 Chevron Scholarships
Thank you to CHEVRON for their 2013 scholarship funding received this month for our students! Announcement of recipients in Environmental Analysis and Subsurface Geoscience will be made in early spring 2013.

Corporate support is essential for the program and its students and we like to encourage others to follow Chevron's and Schlumberger's example of supporting an education that prepares students for positions in industry and business. Corporate support will help us attract high-quality students to our program.

Please do not hesitate to contact us at
profms@rice.edu , if you are interested in learning more about the program, would like to meet our students for lunch, or take advantage of a speaking opportunity on campus.

Companies actively supporting our program:

 
  • Anadarko  
  • Agilent Technologies 
  • Aramco
  • Baker Hughes
  • BHP Billiton
  • BP
  • Chevron
  • ConocoPhillips
  • Camp, Dresser & McKee, Inc
  • CGG Veritas 
  • City of Houston
  • DNV
  • Digisonics
  • Element Markets
  • ENVIRON
  • EOG Resources
  • ERM Group, Inc
  • Exxon Mobil
  • Geosyntec
  • Golder Associate
  • GSI Environmental, Inc
  •  HOK
     
 
 
  • Halliburton Landmark 
  • HUCO Consulting
  • ION Geophysical
  • INTEL
  • Lynn Inc
  • Landmark/Halliburton 
  • Kerogen Exploration 
  • Lockheed Martin
  • Marathon Oil
  • Methodist Hospital Research Institute
  • Noble Energy, Inc.
  • Nanoridge
  • NASA
  • nGimat
  • Occidential Oil and Gas Corp
  • PGS
  • Shell
  • Schlumberger
  • Teledrill, Inc
  • Total E&P USA, Inc
  • Trinity Consulting
  • URS
  •  Wood McKenzie ... and others