The min­i­mum require­ment for admis­sion to the Master’s Degree pro­gram is com­ple­tion of a Bachelor’s degree or its equiv­a­lent at a fully accred­ited U.S. insti­tu­tion of higher learn­ing or for­eign equiv­a­lent. Because the pro­gram is fun­da­men­tally inter­dis­ci­pli­nary, there are no other for­mal require­ments for con­sid­er­a­tion, although, as dis­cussed above, suc­cess­ful can­di­dates will demon­strate aca­d­e­mic and intel­lec­tual excel­lence. Please review the UC Berkeley Graduate Division minimum requirements for admission as a graduate student at http://grad.berkeley.edu/.

The minimum graduate admission requirements are:

a bachelor’s degree or recognized equivalent from an accredited institution;

a satisfactory scholastic average, usually a minimum grade-point average (GPA) of 3.0 (B) on a 4.0 scale; and

enough undergraduate training to do graduate work in your chosen field.

The graduate courses in ERG provide advanced training in interdisciplinary analysis and research. Individual courses review current developments in the field or emphasize particular disciplinary perspectives: economics, resources, politics, public policy, or environmental sciences.

Master’s Degrees in Energy and Resources

The pur­pose of the ERG Master’s pro­gram is to edu­cate the next gen­er­a­tion of inter­dis­ci­pli­nary lead­ers. Stu­dents are taught the range of meth­ods and sub­jects they should be able to under­stand, advance, and cri­tique to address crit­i­cal issues stem­ming from the inter­ac­tion of humans and the envi­ron­ment. To that end, the require­ments for the ERG master’s degree are both broad and deep, stress­ing ana­lytic, method­olog­i­cal, the­o­ret­i­cal, and prac­ti­cal approaches to prob­lems in energy, resources, and the environment.

The course require­ments pro­vide for a sub­stan­tive intro­duc­tion to the dis­ci­pli­nary approaches that are employed in study­ing energy and resource issues. The require­ments also ensure expe­ri­ence in inter­dis­ci­pli­nary analy­sis applied to a key resource con­cern. The cur­ricu­lum pro­vides an oppor­tu­nity—through a top­i­cal clus­ter and an inde­pen­dent project—to extend and deepen the areas of inves­ti­ga­tion and under­stand­ing to sat­isfy the intel­lec­tual inter­ests of each student.

The cur­ricu­lum is intended to serve those stu­dents for whom the master’s degree will be the final for­mal edu­ca­tion in sup­port of a pro­fes­sional career and also those stu­dents who intend to con­tinue their edu­ca­tion, for exam­ple by pur­su­ing a PhD in Energy and Resources.

Master’s/PhD Track

A small num­ber of highly qual­i­fied appli­cants will be selected for the Master’s/PhD Track. The track is both an indi­ca­tion of your intent to con­tinue to the PhD pro­gram at ERG, and ERG’s expec­ta­tion that you will to be qual­i­fied to con­tinue to doc­toral work after sat­is­fy­ing the master’s degree require­ments. It does not oblig­ate you, or ERG, to your even­tual matric­u­la­tion to the PhD. Can­di­dates admit­ted into the joint Master’s/PhD track will be expected to com­plete all the require­ments of the ERG Master’s Degree before con­tin­u­ing.

ERG Con­cur­rent Degree Pro­grams (MPP/MA or MMP/MS)

The Energy and Resources Group (ERG) and the The Gold­man School of Pub­lic Pol­icy (GSPP) offer a MPP-ERG (MA or MS) con­cur­rent degree pro­gram that inte­grates the strengths of pub­lic pol­icy ana­lyt­i­cal tools with the inter­dis­ci­pli­nary knowl­edge and exper­tise in energy and resources. Stu­dents com­plete both pro­grams in three years and receive a master’s of pub­lic pol­icy (MPP) as well as a master’s degree in Energy and Resources (MA or MS).

Matric­u­la­tion from the Master’s to the PhD

Stu­dents who begin on the Master’s/ PhD Track, as well as those who are admit­ted to the two-year master’s degree pro­gram, will have an oppor­tu­nity to declare their inter­est in con­tin­u­ing to the PhD dur­ing the third semes­ter of the two-year master’s program.

To offi­cially matric­u­late into the PhD pro­gram, all master’s degree stu­dents must meet the fol­low­ing cri­te­ria: 1) they must meet all the require­ments of the master’s degree pro­gram and 2) they must have a let­ter from one ladder-rank fac­ulty mem­ber in the ERG core or affil­i­ate pool that indi­cates a com­mit­ment to serve as the student’s PhD advi­ser and an assess­ment of the types of projects the stu­dent could work on dur­ing PhD stud­ies. If the stu­dent does not meet these cri­te­ria he or she will be given the oppor­tu­nity to fin­ish any addi­tional course work, if nec­es­sary, to com­plete the require­ments of the master’s degree, but will not matric­u­late to the PhD program.

PhD in Energy and Resources

The admis­sion require­ment for the PhD is that the total­ity of the student’s course­work after the bachelor’s degree, includ­ing courses taken at other uni­ver­si­ties and inside and out­side of ERG at Berke­ley, must meet the sub­stan­tive and unit require­ments for the ERG MA or MS degree.

There is no for­mal lan­guage require­ment for the PhD degree. How­ever, those stu­dents con­duct­ing research in a non-English speak­ing coun­try must demon­strate com­pe­tency in the lan­guage of the country.

After the doc­toral stu­dent and his or her advi­sers have agreed on a sub­ject for the dis­ser­ta­tion, the stu­dent must defend in a three-hour oral exam­i­na­tion the suit­abil­ity of the topic and his/her prepa­ra­tion for attack­ing it. This exam, called the qual­i­fy­ing exam­i­na­tion, is con­ducted by a com­mit­tee of four fac­ulty mem­bers cho­sen by the stu­dent, in con­sul­ta­tion with his/her fac­ulty advi­ser and sub­ject to the approval of the graduate dean.

This exam­i­na­tion should be taken at least one year before the expected com­ple­tion of the dis­ser­ta­tion. The final require­ment for the PhD is com­ple­tion of the dis­ser­ta­tion to the sat­is­fac­tion of a com­mit­tee con­sist­ing of three fac­ulty advisers/readers cho­sen by the stu­dent, sub­ject to approval by the grad­u­ate dean. The PhD degree in Energy and Resources is typ­i­cally com­pleted three to five years beyond the master’s degree.