Personalized Learning Plan

The concept of a Personal Learning Plan (PLP) is to tailor educational experiences to meet individual needs. Courses are selected in consultation with the student's supervisor, dissertation committee, and the graduate advisor to ensure adequate breadth and depth.

28 credit hours are required (approximately 8 technical 3-credit hour courses + 4 seminar 1-credit hour courses). All eight of the technical courses must be graduate level and taken for a letter grade.

Five of the eight technical courses (3-credits each, 15 credits total) MUST meet the following requirements: 

• Biological or Clinical Sciences
• Basic or Applied Mathematics
  • To meet this requirement, a statistics course is encouraged, but another mathematics topic may be approved in some circumstances.
• Students must take a course from three of the four technical areas below:
  • Technical Area 1: Biomedical Imaging and Instrumentation
  • Technical Area 2: Cellular and Biomolecular Engineering
  • Technical Area 3: Computational Biomedical Engineering
  • Technical Area 4: Biomechanics
• One technical course may be substituted with one approved graduate-level professional development course. All coursework must be approved by the Graduate Advisor in advance.
• A list of courses that count toward these areas can be found on UT Box here: https://utexas.box.com/v/BMEGradcourses
  • Please note this list is not exhaustive–if you find another course that you wish to count toward the above requirements, please send a copy of the syllabus to Dr. Andrew Dunn, the Graduate Adviser, for request to count prior to taking the course.
• BME 197S Seminar Series: You are required to take at least 4 semesters of 197S before graduation, presumably during your first four semesters. You are encouraged to attend the seminar series every semester, whether you are officially enrolled or not.

Program of Work

The Program of Work is a form students complete to report their coursework status as they complete milestones such as the Qualifying Exam, Dissertation Proposal, and Final Oral Defense. 

All versions of the Program of Work for the MS and PhD programs can be found on UT Box at https://utexas.box.com/v/BMEGradForms. The Box folder can also be accessed on the Current Student Resources and Forms page on the BME graduate program website, under the "Forms" section heading. 

Students are to complete the Program of Work that corresponds with their respective degree program and year of entry into the graduate program.