Distance Education - Master of Science in Mathematics

Notes on Making Your Degree Plan

You should choose your Committee and submit your degree plan when you have completed 9, or at most 12, credit hours. First, select your Masters Committee Chair. This is an online math instructor who will act as your main advisor and guide you through your program of study. You need two other members for your Committee-- another math faculty person and one faculty person from a department outside of mathematics. Your Chair can help you decide your remaining members if needed but you are responsible for emailing each faculty member to ask if they are willing to serve as your Chair or member on your Committee.

Compose your degree plan to include all required courses for your program. Specific information can be found at Program Information. Your degree plan will have 36 credit hours or slightly more. It is recommended that you work with your Committee Chair on the preparation of your degree plan, as your full Committee must ultimately approve it.

If you want to transfer courses to the program, you must submit catalog descriptions of the courses prior to listing them on your degree plan for departmental approval. Our university will allow up to 12 hours for transfer credit (the courses can not have been used to satisfy a previous degree). Departments can impose stricter guidelines, however. We will accept up to 12 hours of graduate level math courses for transfer credit. If you want to transfer graduate education courses, our department will only allow up to 3 hours and they must be in mathematics education. If you want to transfer graduate statistics courses, we will only allow up to 6 hours. Additionally, by University rule, you must have been a degree-seeking graduate student when enrolled in the courses you are hoping to transfer and an official transcript for those courses must be on file with the main Admissions Office prior to listing them on your degree plan.

Once you have finalized the courses for your degree plan, you'll submit it at the online submission site at http://ogsdpss.tamu.edu. Make sure you choose the option code NDE non-thesis distance education when you submit your degree plan. Below are some examples for reference.

Try not to stress out about this process. Yes, you will have to guess on courses you'll take in the future but also know that the degree plan is not set in stone. Anything on it-- courses, Committee members-- can be changed via petition if needed. Most students end up making adjustments to their degree plans during the course of their studies.

Please email math-masters@tamu.edu if you need assistance.

updated: April 28, 2021