To supplement a degree in Mechanical Engineering, students also have the option of also participate in any of the following programs:
The Engineering and Business for Sustainability
The Engineering and Business for Sustainability (EBS) Certificate Program is a new initiative to train UC Berkeley graduate students to understand the complexity and urgency of their role in engineering, business, and environmental management, and to work across boundaries to achieve sustainable solutions to pressing societal problems.
Designated Emphasis in Energy Science and Technology – DEEST
The Graduate Group in Energy Science and Technology has to date eleven affiliated Ph.D. programs: Chemical Engineering, Chemistry, Nuclear Engineering, the Energy Resources Group, Materials Science and Engineering, Physics, Plant and Microbial Biology, Mechanical Engineering, EECS, the ME- Fluid Mechanics and Ocean Engineering Group, and Applied Science and Technology. The main goal of the DEEST is to enrich student’s technical education in an important field and to enhance and facilitate interactions between faculty and students in different programs by creating a flexible and integrated interdisciplinary research and teaching environment.
Designated Emphasis in Development Engineering – Dev Eng
The Designated Emphasis in Development Engineering (DE in Dev Eng) is an interdisciplinary “Ph.D. Minor” for UC Berkeley doctoral students whose dissertation research includes topics related to the application of technology to address the needs of people living in poverty. Through coursework, research mentoring, and professional development, the program prepares students to develop, pilot, and evaluate technological interventions designed to improve human and economic development within complex, low-resource settings. The DE in Dev Eng serves students across engineering disciplines, quantitative social science disciplines (including public health), business programs, information sciences, and natural sciences. The program builds upon ongoing research in technological innovations, human-centered design, development economics, remote sensing and monitoring, data science, and impact analysis at UC Berkeley. The program is overseen by the Graduate Group in Development Engineering, administered through the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. The program features a new NSF Research Traineeship, Innovations at the Nexus of Food, Energy, and Water Systems (InFEWS), which trains students to develop solutions to food-energy-water challenges that address poverty.
Designated Emphasis in Computational and Data Science and Engineering
A great many fields of science, engineering, finance and social science are embracing modeling, simulation, and data analysis as necessary tools to advance their fields. Sometimes this is driven by the march of Moore’s Law providing computational power that makes simulations possible that were not possible before; it is also driven by the availability of large data sets not available before that require extensive computation to understand. The excitement of these opportunities has led 108 faculty from 20 departments and graduate programs to join together to create a new Designated Emphasis (DE) in CSE, essentially a “graduate minor” for Ph.D. students enrolled in these 20 programs to become fluent in modeling, simulation, and data analysis tools. The participating departments are extraordinarily diverse and include Computer Science, Mathematics, Chemistry, Mechanical Engineering, Astronomy, Neuroscience and Political Science, among many others.
Course Work Only (CWO)
Applicants to our department also have the option to apply to a non-degree option called “Course Work Only” (CWO) on their graduate school application. You will need to meet all of the normal criteria for admission to be considered. There is a limit of two semesters of study and admission to this status precludes future admission or change of major into a degree program at Berkeley.
Generally, students who apply to CWO are international students just needing to take a years worth of courses here but are planning to finish their degrees at their home institution.