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Application for Graduation
Approval of an application for the M.S. in Environmental Science and Policy is contingent upon the successful completion of an approved program and recommendation for the degree from the College of Arts and Sciences. Applications for degree conferral must be submitted to the Office of the Registrar the semester prior to completion of the degree requirements.
The following requirements must be met for completion of the degree requirement:
- Students must earn a 3.0 GPA calculated on all graduate work attempted for which letter grades are awarded and cannot include grades of C or below. At least 30 hours required for the degree, including the program core, must be earned in residence. A maximum of eight semester hours of relevant coursework with no grade lower than B may be accepted by transfer. Transfer credit will not be used in computing the student’s GPA at USF St. Petersburg.
- A Comprehensive Examination must be satisfactorily completed before graduation. The comprehensive exam may be in written or oral format, at the discretion of the Graduate Advisory Committee. In general, the format will be a series of discussions (written or oral) of fundamental concepts.
The student may elect to take the comprehensive exam at any point during his/her tenure in the program but must understand that the performance expectations remain the same.
- A student must be enrolled for at least 2-semester hours of credit during the semester that the comprehensive examination is administered.
- If the exam is taken between semesters, the student must enroll for a minimum of two (2) hours of graduate credit in the semester before or following the exam.
- The exam may contain material covered in the program courses as well as a selection of topics that a student should have studied in his/her undergraduate career.
- At a minimum, the Comprehensive Examination will contain at least three sections, including questions from Experimental Design and Statistical Analysis plus at least two of the following topic areas:
- Environmental Chemistry
- Environmental Geology
- Ecological Methods
- Environmental Policy
- Political Ecology
- Global Conservation
- Each section of the Comprehensive Exam will be evaluated and graded as “Superior”, “Acceptable”, or “Unacceptable.” A “Superior” or “Acceptable” grade must be obtained for each section of the Comprehensive Exam. The results of all Comprehensive Exams will be reported annually as an assessment measure.
The Graduate Advisory Committee will consult with the candidate graduate student and appropriate faculty to determine the content and method of delivery of the examination.
- A candidate who does not perform satisfactorily may be required to enroll in additional courses or, through a special topics class, review of critical literature and techniques. In any case, a student who has unsatisfactory results will not be eligible for re-examination before the following semester. In such instances, it will not be necessary for the student to be enrolled in order to be examined.
- Each student must successfully defend the thesis as determined by the thesis committee.
- A student must be enrolled for at least 2-semester hours of credit during the semester that the thesis defense is completed.
- A student must be enrolled for a minimum of two (2) graduate hours during the semester of graduation.
- All degree requirements must be completed within seven years of the first enrollment. If a student should continue beyond this “statute of limitations”, he/she may lose credit for coursework attempted in all semesters five years prior to the current semester of enrollment.
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