Information for New Graduate Students - University of Houston
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Department of Mathematics

Graduate Studies

New and Returning Students

Information for New Graduate Students

Dates and locations for all events listed below are available each semester at this web page link.

For all new students:

  1. All new students (except MA) should come to UH at least one week before the start of the semester. Typically, during this week they attend orientation and placement events.
  2. Attend the College Orientation and the Departmental Orientation. Information about our departmental orientation is sent out in the summer.
  3. Register for classes before the semester starts. All students will be given advising, related to which courses they should register for, during our Departmental Orientation.
  4. Departmental Graduate Student Handbook
  5. Feel free to email the Math Graduate Student Representatives with questions related to life as a graduate student in our department: mathgsrs@central.uh.edu

Graduate Course Selection:

Current Course Offerings: You can find an up-to-date list of the Mathematics Department's graduate and 4000 level undergraduate courses from our web-site link. Use this list and these course/section numbers in deciding on your courses for the semester. Both the Director of Graduate Studies and the Assistant Director of Graduate Studies will be happy to advise you on possible choices.

Each course has a four-digit course number. The first digit indicates the course level. Courses beginning with 3 are junior undergraduate courses; beginning with 4 are senior undergraduate courses; beginning with a 5 or more are graduate courses. Courses beginning with a 5 are typically offered online. The second digit in the course number indicates how many credit hours that course is worth. Typically each course has 3 credit hours. As examples, 4311 indicates a 3 credit undergraduate course, while 5311 is a 3 credit graduate course.

Only the courses beggining with a 5 or higher will be counted towards graduate degree.

Teaching Fellows (TF), Research Assistants (RA), and Teaching Assistants (TA) must enroll for 9 credit hours each Fall and Spring semester.

Students must be registered during their graduating semester.

The University Policy regarding online courses for international students can be found here. International student can register for at most one 3 hour online course per semester.

 

Dropping/Withdrawal:

If a student wishes to drop a class, they must actively do so using myUH self-service and/or completing the required paperwork. Full instructions about how this can be done are available on this page.

Simply skipping your required payments is not an acceptable method for dropping courses. Despite any communications from the university that you may be dropped for non-payment, students should never assume that they will be dropped.

 

Leave of Absence: All graduate students (Master's and PhD) who do not plan to enroll in a Fall or Spring semester must file for a Leave of Absence (LOA), before the semester of absence begins. If the LOA form is not submitted on time, students will be subject to termination from the program. An LOA request is only good for one semester, and at most 3 of these requests can be granted during a student's graduate career. Upon returning from an LOA, students are required to apply for reinstatement to their program of study.

Details and forms related to LOA requests can be found here on the NSM webpage.

 

Transfer Credit: There are strict requirements regarding transferring credit earned from other graduate programs, to a graduate program at UH (see this page for details). Transfer credit is not guaranteed, and a maximum of 9 hours of transfer credit is allowed. Students who would like to request transfer credit for previously earned work should submit a Graduate & Professional Student Petition during their first semester at UH. For outside classes taken concurrently with UH studies, all transfer requests have to be submitted prior to the graduating semester. In addition, approval for taking an outside class concurrent with the UH studies must be obtained prior to enrolling into that class. Credit transfer does not apply to the MSDS program.

 

Forms: Forms for graduate students can be found at this link.

 

Graduate Academic Policies: Please review the Graduate Academic Policies available at this link.

 

Grievance Procedures: Guidelines for filing grievances at the departmental level can be found here. For College level grievance procedures, see this page.

  

Travel Support for PhD students: PhD students who intend to present their research work at scientific conferences can request financial support from the College of NSM using this Cullen Fellowship Travel Grant (CFTG) link.

We highly encourage students to apply to this grant if they want to attend a conference. Moreover, no departmental support will be granted if students did not make an attempt to receive the CFTG. I.e. students must apply for the Cullen Fellowship Travel Grant first. If the application is denied or if the grant is insufficient, then they can request departmental support. Applications for the CFTG require 25% commitment from the department, thus students must discuss these applications with the graduate director first. If the student's advisor has external funding which allows travel support, we expect a 25% commitment from the advisor.

In order to apply for the departmental support (or receive 25% commitment for the CFTG from the department) students must submit the same information (abstract required) as for the CFTG in pdf form (one file) at least 2 months in advance. The graduate Studies Committee will discuss these requests and make a recommendation.

 

Other Information: