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Grad Cognate Courses

The ECE department requires PhD graduate students to complete cognate courses, which are courses in a discipline or area different from a student’s field of study, but are related or connected with some aspect of this field.

As a general rule, courses that meets one of the following criteria can meet the cognate requirement:

  • Any course outside EECS department
  • Any course on the ECE Course List that does not have a M or E in the entire row of the course.
  • Cross-listed courses that are not in your major area
  • Needs Approval from Major Area Advisor
Common Cognate Courses

Here is a list of specific courses that our students have taken over the years. These courses are usually outside the traditional engineering, math, and science courses.

AEROSP 585 Aerospace Seminar (1 credit)

BA 476 American Business History (3 credits)

BA 612 Business Strategies for the Base of the Pyramid (2.25 credits)

BCOM 561 Management Presentations (1.5 credits)

ENGR 403 Scientific Visualization (3 credits)

EECS/ENGR 406 High-Tech Entrepreneurship (4 credits)

EECS/ENGR 410 Patent Fundamentals for Engineers (4 credits)

ENGR 450 Multidisciplinary Design (4 credits)

ENGR 520 Entrepreneurial Business Fundamentals for Engineers & Scientists (3 credits)

ENGR 521 Clean Tech Entrepreneurship (3 credits)

ENGR 599 Special Topics in Engineering (1-4 credits)

ENTR 500 Intro to Innovation Careers (3 credits)

ENTR 550 Interpersonal Skills (3 credits) 

ENTR 560 Project Management and Consulting (3 credits)

ENTR 599 Special Topics in Entrepreneurship (1-4 credits)

ES 512 Business Basics for Graduate Engineers (3 credits)

MO 512 Bargaining and Influence Skills (2.25 credits)

MO 603 Navigating Change: Skills and Strategies for Consultants and Managers (1.5 credits)

MO 637 Social Intrapreneuship: Leading Social Innovation in Organizations (2.25 credits)

NRE 550 Systems Thinking for Sustainable Development (3 credits)

Pub Pol 754 Res Seminar in Science, Tech & Pub Policy (1 to 3 credits)

STRATEGY 503 Competing in the Global Business Environment (1.5 credits)

TO 548 Integrated Product Development (3 credits)

TO 513 Spreadsheet Modeling and Applications (1.5 credits)

Departments for Cognate Courses

Check out the course offering from these departments/academic programs for potential cognate courses. You can find a list of courses for Engineering programs here. Non-engineering programs have the link to list of courses below.

Aerospace Engineering (AEROSP)

Applied Physics (APPPHY)

Automotive Engineering (AUTO)

Biomedical Engineering (BIOMEDE)

Center for Entrepreneurship (ENTR)

Chemical Engineering (CHE)

Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE)

Climate and Space Sciences and Engineering (CLIMATE), (SPACE)

Complex Systems (COMPLXSYS)

Environmental Sciences and Engineering (ENSCEN)

Energy Systems Engineering (ESENG)

Industrial and Operations Engineering (IOE)

Information, School of (SI)

Integrative Systems + Design (ISD)

Macromolecular Science (MACROSE)

Material Science and Engineering (MATSCIE)

Manufacturing (MFG)

Mathematics (MATH)

Mechanical Engineering (MECHENG)

Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering (NAVARCH)

Nuclear Engineering and Radiological Sciences (NERS)

Physics (PHYSICS)

Robotics (ROB)

Statistics (STATS)

Graduate Certificate Programs

If you are interested in earning another master’s degree or graduate certificate, you should consider using your cognate courses as a way to fulfill the requirements of other programs.Here are a list of common certificate programs for ECE students.

Computational Discovery and Engineering >

Data Science >

Engineering Education Research >

Global Operations >

Plasma Science and Engineering >