To meet the needs of both employers and employees within the optics industry, Optical Sciences offers an innovative academic program that can be completed entirely by distance learning. The idea for the program came directly from optics industry representatives who asked faculty members to create an unusually high-quality graduate program for working professionals worldwide.
The Professional Graduate Certificate in Optical Sciences program is designed for working professionals who have already earned a bachelor’s degree and who wish to supplement their post-baccalaureate practical knowledge with formal coursework leading to professional certification. The goal of the program is twofold: first, to provide distance learning students with the best graduate-level optics education available and second, to offer students the opportunity to build a foundation that can count toward a future Master of Science in Optical Sciences degree.
The Certificate program combines recent advances in optical technology with two of Optical Sciences' greatest strengths – its outstanding graduate academic program and its world-class teaching faculty. Certificate students enroll in regular Optical Sciences graduate courses and select the medium in which they receive the taped lectures: Video tape, CD-ROM, or Web-streaming. The Certificate program’s rich variety of classes allows students the opportunity to explore the broad fundamentals of optical sciences or to choose courses of particular relevance to their immediate employment goals.
Students plan their own course of study by selecting from two or three video courses offered each semester. The courses are taught by Optical Sciences professional faculty members, not by teaching assistants or part-time associates. The distance learning courses are the same courses offered to MS and PhD degree candidates in residency at the University of Arizona.
Students earn the Professional Graduate Certificate by completing five 3-unit courses for a total of 15 units of Optical Sciences graduate credit courses with grades of B or better. The Certificate program does require continuous enrollment and the time limit for completion is 4 years. Upon completion of the 15 units of Optical Sciences graduate credit courses the student must submit a Certificate Plan of Study to the Graduate College Degree Certification Office. The Certificate will then be posted to the student's transcript.
The Certificate program is designed to be unusually flexible in meeting the needs of working professionals; however, the Certificate program can also be completed by on campus students in part or full-time status. International applicants must submit a Toefl Score.
Students’ goals, options, and commitments may change over time, so a critical component of the program gives students the option of applying to the MS program, transferring up to 15 of their certificate units, completing their remaining coursework on campus or by distance spending at least one semester on campus to complete the laboratory and thesis or report requirements needed to earn a Master’s degree. Applicants' Academic BackgroundApplicants should hold a Bachelor of Science degree in optics, engineering, physics, mathematics or a related field. Before beginning graduate level work, students should have taken four semesters of calculus including differential equations, two or more semesters of college physics and an electromagnetism course as part of their undergraduate degree coursework. |
In the fast-paced, high-tech world of optics, graduate education is the key
to success. Optics firms are experiencing unprecedented demands for
graduate-level employees and competition for the small pool of very
highly-educated potential employees is becoming increasingly intense. However,
for growing numbers of BS degree technicians and engineers who work in today’s
highly-competitive optics industry, returning to a college campus in search of a
graduate degree can be logistically impossible.