In accordance with the regulation of the Institute, master students will obtain their degree once they have completed ten courses (30 credit hours), a master thesis, and an oral defense. Among the ten courses of study, six of them must be selected from the prescribed courses in the Institute while the remaining could be selected from other programs in the Civil Engineering Department or approved courses offered by other departments. Usually a full-time student will complete the master’s degree requirements within two years, and a part-time student has three years to complete such requirements.

Potential doctoral students will obtain their doctoral degree by completing eight courses (24 credit hours), a doctoral thesis, and an oral defense. However, students studying in the doctoral program are required to pass a qualification examination within five semesters of enrollment to the doctoral program before they can be given the status of a Ph.D. candidate. Two accepted journal papers are also a pre-requisite to the oral defense.