Course Requirements

Introduction

The Master of Arts in Energy and Earth Resources (EER) requires 30 hours of graduate course credit of which 6 hours are thesis. Three hours of upper division undergraduate course work may be counted toward the 24 hour course requirement with the approval of the Graduate Advisor.

Core Courses

All EER students will take the following core courses, except as noted or with the approval of the Graduate Advisor for exceptions based on previous work or course experience.

EMR 396/PGE 383 Energy and Earth Resource Economics
GEO 391 Geology of Earth Resources
EMR 396/PGE 383 Oil and Gas Financial Management

Students entering the program with a geology course that includes the origin and distribution of energy, mineral, and water resources are not be required to take the Geology of Earth Resources course.

Modules

Upon registering for the first semester of coursework, each student will select an area of concentration as defined by the following modules. Students will take 9 hours within the chosen module and 6 hours of elective coursework chosen from other module course lists or from within the module he/she has chosen to focus on. Elective courses outside those in the overall module list can be taken with the permission of the student’s thesis supervisor or the EER Graduate Advisor. Prior to registration for the upcoming semester the Graduate Advisor will issue a list of courses being offered that are approved as module courses.

Current modules:

Business, Finance, and Management
Policy and Law
Resource Economics and Econometrics
Resource Science and Engineering

Module Courses

This is a sample list. Because course offerings change and vary from semester to semester, a current list of approved module courses is issued by the Graduate Advisor prior to the registration period for the upcoming semester. Students may request approval for relevant courses not on the current semester list.

Business, Finance, Management

EMR 396/PGE 383 International Petroleum Concessions
EMR 396/PGE 389 Economic Analysis in the Petroleum Industry
FIN 397 Financial Risk Management
FIN 394 Financial Management
FIN 394 Advanced Corporate Finance
FIN 394 Global Finance
CE 385D Water Resources Planning and Management

Policy and Law

LEB 380 Energy Law
LAW 390 Oil and Gas Law
LAW 279M International Petroleum Transactions
LAW 241 Environmental Law
PA 682 Cross-Border Water Management
EMR 396 Current Issues in International Energy and Environmental Policy
CHE 384 Energy Technology and Policy

Resource Economics and Econometrics

EMR 396 Economic Analysis in the Petroleum Industry
ECO 359M* Environment and Natural Resource Economics
ECO 384N Natural Resource Economics
ECO 384N Environmental Economics
ECO 392 Resource Systems Modeling or Math Programming
ECO 341* or 350* Econometrics (upper division undergraduate course)
ECO 392M Probability and Statistics (prereq. for Econometrics I)
ECO 392M Econometrics I

Resource Science and Engineering

GEO 383R Reservoir Geology and Advanced Recovery
GEO 386E Economic Geology
GEO 382 Physical Hydrology
CE 390L Environmental Analysis
PGE 388 Advanced Reservoir Engineering
EE 394 Power Systems Engineering

Thesis

Each EER student is required to take Thesis A and Thesis B to provide 6 credit hours of thesis. Thesis A must be taken before Thesis B and is normally taken in the third full semester in the EER program.

Before approval will be given by the Graduate Advisor to take Thesis A, the student must have identified his/her thesis supervisor and have reported this to the Graduate Advisor or Graduate Coordinator. The work carried out in Thesis A should either be research in preparation for finalizing a thesis topic or work on the thesis itself. Thesis B may not be taken until a student has identified the thesis topic and two readers for the thesis.

The usual sequence for an EER thesis is as follows. Students can begin thesis work earlier than the third semester if they have selected a supervisor, topic, and readers.

Thesis Sequence
First Semester:	No thesis activity.
Second Semester:	Identify general or specific thesis topic and thesis supervisor. Have thesis supervisor approved by EER Graduate Advisor.
Third Semester:	Thesis A: research on general material in area of interest to determine thesis topic or on specific thesis topic if it was identified in second semester (recommended). Identify and gain Graduate Advisor approval of thesis readers.
Fourth Semester:	Thesis B: complete thesis.