Division of Systems Engineering
Systems Engineering cuts across the traditional engineering departmental structure as a discipline that studies systems—be they electrical, mechanical, chemical, biological, or involving business processes and logistics—through information, decision, and control sciences. Systems engineers are equipped with the unique skills to adapt their knowledge and expertise to diverse application domains, including automation, robotics, and control; communications and networking; computational biology; information sciences; production; service systems supply chains; energy systems; and more.
The Systems Engineering Program at BU provides a unique graduate curriculum for students with these interests as well as extensive research opportunities through the interdisciplinary Center for Information & Systems Engineering and its industry connections.
Systems Engineering is a cross-disciplinary program, offered by the College of Engineering in cooperation with faculty from the Graduate School of Arts & Sciences and the School of Management. The program integrates courses from engineering, computer science, mathematics, and management.
For undergraduates, the program offers a systems engineering minor, which can be used to supplement your studies in another major field of study and provide you with a foundation in the discipline. Your required and elective courses cover a range of topics such as probability theory, signals and systems, applied algorithms, operations research, and supply chain engineering.
The program offers Master of Engineering, Master of Science, and Doctor of Philosophy degrees for graduate students. Through coursework, collaborative training projects, and dissertation research, you will learn to apply analytical, computational and mathematical methods to all aspects of modern technology that require sophisticated modeling and intelligent information processing for design, management, and control. You will receive instruction in communications and ethics as appropriate to the social impact and implications of Systems Engineering.
Students in the program have access to these units’ state-of-the-art computational and experimental facilities. You’ll also have the opportunity to participate in innovative research in collaboration with faculty from other departments as well as the Center for Information and Systems Engineering. Research areas explored include automation, robotics, and control; communications and networking; computational biology; information sciences; and production, service, and energy systems.
Admissions
Prospective students should have a strong undergraduate background in engineering, mathematics, physics, computer science, or economics. Applicants are required to submit scores from the Graduate Record Examination Test. General Graduate Record Examinations Subject Test scores are also accepted; normally, the subject test should be taken in engineering, mathematics, physics, computer science, or economics. Applicants whose native language is not English are also required to submit results of the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL). Applications may be obtained from, and all materials sent to: Boston University, College of Engineering, Graduate Programs, 44 Cummington Street, Boston, MA 02215. Online applications are also available.
Applications for admission for the fall semester, with or without financial aid consideration, must be submitted by January 15 for domestic applications and December 15 for international applications. The application deadline for spring admission is October 1 for both domestic and international applicants.
