The University

Texas A&M University (http://www. tamu.edu ) was founded as a land-grant college in 1876 and is the state’s oldest public institution of higher education. Because it was conceived as a school of agriculture and engineering, the institution maintains the expected emphases, but offerings in many other areas have been added to broaden the scope of instruction. The campus covers 5,200 acres, and the estimated value of the physical plant is now $325 million. The university is 8th in research in the United States, with a current annual sponsored research total of $272.8 million. According to the US News Week report, the Department of Electrical Engineering ranks 19th out of 198 similar graduate programs in the nation.

Programs of Study

The Department of Electrical Engineering offers programs of graduate study leading to the degrees of Master of Engineering, Master of Science, and Doctor of Philosophy. The Department has approximately 50 faculty members, 311 graduate students, and an undergraduate enrollment of 1146 students. Opportunities for graduate study and research exist in the areas of communications, computer-aided design of electronic circuits (including expert systems), computers and digital systems, control systems, digital signal processing, electric power systems and power electronics, electromagnetics, electrooptics, image processing, microelectronics, remote-sensing systems, solid-state electronics, solid-state materials, and VLSI circuit design. Interdisciplinary programs are also available.

Financial aid is available in the form of research or teaching assistantships, scholarships, and fellowships. Stipends for assistantships in 1996-97 varied between $800 to $1200 per month; they quality out-of-state students for resident tuition. Assistantships require approximately 20 hours per week, and recipients must register for 9 to 12 hours of course work each semester. Research assistants work on one of the Department’s ongoing research projects; teaching assistants help with undergraduate instruction. Various types of graduate fellowships are awarded to out-standing students; recipients are expected to register for 16 hours each semester.

Tuition in 1997-98 for Texas residents is $70 per semester credit hour with a minimum of $120 per semester. Other fees total approximately $600 per semester. Tuition for nonresident students is $285 per semester credit hour. (Costs are subject to change.) Graduate students pay an addition $36 per semester per credit hour. Graduate Students supported as either graduate teaching assistants or graduate research assistants generally qualify for resident tuition rates.

A limited number of University-owned apartments, both furnished or unfurnished, are available for married students. Rents range from $185 to $290 per month, plus electricity. A large number of private complexes with one to three-bedroom apartments are available, with rents ranging from $400 to $1000 per month. More information is provided at Off Campus Student Services

Texas A&M is coeducational, and enrollment is approximately 39,000 including about 6,000 graduate students. The enrollment in the College of Engineering is approximately 8,500, the largest in the US; in electrical engineering, there are about 1,500 students. In 1998, of the 363 graduate students enrolled in electrical engineering, there are 217 master’s degree candidates and 144 Ph.D. candidates and 2 non-degree status.