You cannot be a graduate and an undergraduate student at the same time. However, you can apply and be admitted to the program and take graduate courses that will count towards your MIAP degree while you are an undergraduate senior. Conditions (for taking graduate credit courses as an undergrad) are listed under the regulations in the University Catalog pertaining to graduate credit for seniors (section 4.7 in “University Academic Regulations” or on page 66 of the 2013-14 OSU University Catalog, under the heading “Graduate Credit Hours for a Senior”).

MIAP students come from a variety of academic disciplines and degree backgrounds, agriculture and non-agriculture related. MIAP students have the opportunity to take classes that are relevant to their focus area; these could include agricultural leadership, case studies in international trade and development, directed readings, gender issues in the Middle East, grant seeking, human nutrition with a focus in international development, and advanced methods of agricultural teaching. For courses that need prerequisites, some professors are willing to work with the students so they receive graduate credit for those prerequisites.

You can go ahead and apply to the program. After you have been admitted, you can schedule an advisory meeting, during which MIAP faculty and staff will help you design a Plan of Study based on your interests and background.

You’ll need to apply to MIAP through the Graduate College. If you are currently at OSU, you will not need to send another transcript. Otherwise, you will need to send your transcripts along with your application fee (the Grad College requires you to pay the application fee to change your degree, even if you have already paid a fee to apply to the degree that you are transferring from). You will also need to send two letters of recommendation and a purpose statement to MIAP.

Thesis: A thesis is a lengthy work of writing formed from the findings of a personally-conducted research project. A thesis must follow the guidelines given by OSU. An M.S. with a thesis requires 6 thesis credit hours plus 24 hours of formal course work, as well as the passing of an oral presentation defending your thesis and research. 

 

Formal Report: A formal report is similar to a thesis, but shorter and does not necessarily include conducting personal research. An M.S. with a formal report requires 2 credit hours of thesis plus 30 hours of formal course work. The detailed requirements of a formal report are ultimately decided by your advisory committee. A formal presentation of the report to your advisory committee is usually expected. 

 

Creative Component: A creative component typically consists of your international experience and a presentation or document describing your experience and learnings. A creative component can not earn thesis hours. 

 

The Graduate College leaves it up to the home departments whether a formal report or a creative component needs to be defended. The Graduate College does not keep track of formal reports and creative components.

Your visa requires that you be enrolled as a full-time student. The full-time status for a graduate student is nine hours per semester (fall and spring), with a minimum of six credit hours from on-site courses (not online) counting towards the full-time status. Therefore, if you are taking nine hours, only one three hour internet course may count towards your full-time status and the remaining six credits have to be on-campus. If you are taking fifteen hours, then six hours have to be on-campus and the remaining nine hours can be from online courses. If you are planning on taking hybrid courses that have some on-site and some online or travel components, check with your academic advisor or the Office of International Students and Scholars to see whether the courses could count towards the minimum six hours of on-campus course requirement.

• If you took graduate approved classes at another university and they did not count towards any other degree: you can transfer 9 hours

• If you took graduate approved classes at OSU and they did not count towards another degree: you can transfer all hours

• If you have already completed a master's degree, 9 hours of those graduate courses may count toward MIAP

Please note that ultimately it is up to your advisory committee on which courses would be transferable after you have met the minimum OSU credit requirements.

Graduate certificates are outside of the transfer limits, so any hours taken for a Master’s degree could be used again for a certificate or the other way around.

Note that these responses apply to simultaneous degrees or degrees completed in the past ten years.

Of your total degree credits, at least 21 credits need to be 5000- or 6000-level courses.

Credits taken at OSU or any other institution are valid for ten years.

Upon approval of your Advisory committee, you may transfer up to nine credit hours from one degree plan to another equivalent (same level, e.g. Master degree to another Master degree plan). The transferred credit has to be from an accredited university (OSU or another accredited university).

Regardless of whether you are at OSU or elsewhere, in order for the credits to be transferred into your M.S. program:

• The courses need to not have counted towards credit requirements for your B.S. degree.

• The courses must be approved for graduate credit by the Graduate College.

• You must have received a grade of “B” or better in those courses.

• No more than 9 (nine) hours of graduate credits may be transferred from another institution.

Regardless of the credits being qualified to be transferred, they could count for pre-requisites for subsequent upper level courses. This depends on the judgment of the student’s academic advisory committee and the approval of the upper-level course instructor.

If you are an international student, check with the office of International Students and Scholars to verify that you are allowed to take a class before you enter the program. If the answer is yes, then you can enroll in the class as a non-degree seeking graduate student.

If the class is approved for graduate credit, then you could count it towards a graduate degree once admitted into our department. However, you would need to have completed your Bachelor’s degree to be able to count the hours you are taking now towards a graduate degree.

Below are some of the requirements for the OSU/MIAP-UPAEP dual degree program:

• 20 credit hours need to be graduate courses at OSU.

• On your OSU plan of study, you may list 12 OSU-equivalent credits (about 24 UPAEP credits, which is about 4 UPAEP courses) from your UPAEP transcript. These courses need to have been completed.

• A copy of your official UPAEP transcript needs to be attached to your OSU plan of study.

• After your Committee’s approval of your plan of study, it will need to be submitted to the Graduate College.

You can transfer all of your ROTC credits if they meet the following conditions:

 

• If they are graduate credits (that is; the course has a graduate section, or the four digit course code begins with a 5--- or 6---).

• If they are granted from an accredited university approved graduate program. OSU courses approved for graduate credit meet this condition.

• If you take your ROTC courses at another institution, then you can count up to nine hours towards your MIAP degree, upon the approval of your advisory committee.

As long as you are deployed for four weeks or longer, your military deployment can count as your international experience credits (AG 5100 for six credits). If your deployment is for less, then we can work with you to see how many credits you can earn from your deployment.

Students are required to be enrolled in at least 2 credit hours for each semester in which they are using the physical or faculty resources of the University (International students, students holding graduate assistantships, students on financial aid, military students, or students employed should note that additional requirements may apply).

 

International students on F-1 or J-1 visas must maintain full-time status during the first semester of enrollment, and during each fall and spring semesters thereafter.

Students on financial aid have other enrollment requirements and should ask the Office of Financial Aid for those requirements.

 

To be considered full-time in either a fall or a spring semester, a student must be enrolled in at least 9 hours. Full-time status during a summer session is attained with 4 hours of enrollment.

Regardless of the number of hours taken, a student may not enroll in more than 12 credit hours in the fall or spring semester. During the summer session, a student may not enroll in more than 9 credit hours taken in any session during the eight-week summer period. No more than 3 credit hours taken during the first summer session (intersession) may count toward a degree.

 

If you want to take more than 16 hours in the fall or spring semesters, you would need to get approval by completing the Petition for Excessive Hours,. The petition form is posted on the Graduate College website.

No, at least 21 hours on your plan of study have to come from courses labelled with course codes of 5000 or above.

Each degree-seeking graduate student must be enrolled in at least 2 credit hours of courses, eligible for graduate credit, during their graduating semester. If you have incomplete courses and need to stay enrolled another semester, then you may be able to ask for an exemption from this rule from the Graduate College. If you have almost completed the coursework in a course in which you were given an incomplete grade but this grade has not been changed (and this is why you were not able to graduate during the previous semester), then you might have a good reason to ask the Graduate College for the exemption to the rule. It is at the discretion of the Graduate College as to whether you will be granted a waiver of the two-hour rule.

No. A minimum of 32 hours is needed to graduate, unless a student chooses to write a thesis. In this case, the student needs to take a minimum of 30 hours.

 

A student choosing to pursue a Master of Agriculture degree must complete a minimum of 36 credit hours.

For most 5000 and 4000 zero ending courses that have the same course prefix and course number (regardless of the section number), students are limited to three hours per semester and not exceeding six hours on their POS.

 

For example, if taking course AGED 5990, you are limited to three credits per semester, regardless of the section number and regardless of whether they are two separate courses under two separate topics/instructors. This rule is true for most 5990 courses. As long as they have the same pre-fix (AGED) and the same course number (5990). The credit limits are specified in the university catalog, in front of each course. Regarding the 4990 courses with a “G” (G stands for Graduate) section; you may take some of these courses for up to 6 credit hours a semester.

In order for MIAP students to receive 6 credits, they are required to have an international experience of at least four weeks. Furthermore, in order for MIAP students to qualify for a longer-term study abroad scholarship from OSU (the requirement set by the Humphrey’s scholarships), they are required to complete an international experience of eight weeks or longer.

 

Some international experience sponsors have provided food and lodging, during which the student stays with host families. In return for food and lodging they might be asked to help out on the farm or ranch, or to teach at a school, but this is largely dependent on the host organization.

Yes, but this may result in the taking of excessive credit hours and lengthening your program. MIAP is intended to be a non-thesis degree. Students in a Master’s degree need to take at least 24 hours of course work. AG 5100 international experience can be counted as part of the 24 hours of course work only if you do not count it as your creative component.

If you write a thesis, you do not need to have a creative component (international experience or internship). Thesis hours and international experience hours (if counted as creative component) cannot count in the 24 hours of formal course work. An additional consideration is that, if a student chooses a thesis option, then the student needs to be academically prepared to write one. Academic preparation may involve taking certain quantitative and research methodology courses. If a student chooses to do an internship as well, this means fewer credits can be allocated to theory courses and therefore, under this scenario the student might not be prepared to write a thesis.

Yes! According to the Graduate College, a thesis completed under a Master of Agriculture degree will be filed just like a thesis for a Master of Science degree.

MIAP does not offer any financial assistance. However; there are many assistantships and travel grants at Oklahoma State University. Some of our students have: a) an assistantship in another department, b) funding from their employer or home country, or c) another on-campus job that is not an assistantship. We wish that we were in direct control of some assistantship funds, but since our program does not do research, we do not participate in the research funds that provide the assistantships. However, our program can be completed in 12 months, a full year less than most other OSU Master’s programs. In addition to this, our international experience requirement can be waived for those students who have a significant amount of international experience already.

 

You may wish to refer to the OSU financial aid website. You can enter search parameters to look for scholarships or grants that you might qualify for. You might also search some of the government websites for adults going back to school to see what types of assistance are available.

Graduate students have access to career services, multicultural programs, the student success center, and many more. For more information, refer to the OSU Graduate Student Services site. 

Field of Hope is a christian based non-profit organization. They strive to develop agricultural knowledge and enthusiasm among youth and smallholder farmers to develop communities to be both nutritionally food secure and economically empowered. 

 

They offer a Field of Hope Fellowship to provide students international agricultural experiences within a diverse international agricultural production system. There are opportunities to work in Uganda, India, and in the U.S. Fellows who go abroad are encouraged to work in-country for 8-12 weeks.

 

For more information, check out their website or contact Field of Hope or Pam Bay.