Gain a degree on campus or online with only 30 credits
- Complete 30 credit hours of U-M graduate courses
- Of the 30 credit hours, at least 18 must be in 500-level and above courses
- Of the 30 credit hours, at least 24 must be letter-graded
- Maintain a cumulative GPA of 3.0 (B) or better.
- Must complete all courses on the approved plan of study within five years from the start date
- No more than six credit hours can be transferred outside of U-M
Plan of study requirements
The Systems Engineering and Design (SED) program recommends a specific distribution of credits across five categories, detailed below.
- Required courses (nine credits)
- Integrative science (three credits, optional)
- Program core (six credits)
- Career pathways (nine credits)
- Immersive practice (three to six credits)
Note that courses with a “*” can be taken either in person or online. All other courses can only be taken in person.
Please review the syllabus and course requirements of online courses to ensure you can fully participate. In particular, check if the instruction is synchronous or asynchronous.
If the approved courses do not meet your academic goals you may submit a proposed plan of study to department leadership for consideration. This plan should outline your unique academic objectives and demonstrate how the proposed courses support your educational and professional aspirations.
Required courses (nine credits)
- *ISD 520: Introduction to Systems Engineering
- *ISD 521: Development and Verification of System Design Requirements
- *ISD 522: Systems Engineering Architecture and Design
Integrative science (three credits, optional)
- Course options include:
Socio-technology
Engineers today need to design with an understanding of social, political, economic and cultural factors. In this field, you’ll learn to create solutions that balance both social and technical aspects, exploring how technology impacts society. You’ll tackle challenges in areas like energy, environment, food, housing, water, transportation, safety and health, while also studying how engineering decisions affect communities and the world.
Key competencies: Socially engaged decision-making, operational understanding of the impact of technology on society, the world and the environment.
Sample courses:
- *ESENG 567 (CEE 567) Energy Infrastructure Systems
- BE 527 (EAS 527, NRE527) Energy Markets and Energy Politics
- CEE 586 (EAS 557) Industrial Ecology
- EAS 513 (STRATEGY 565) Strategies for Sustainable Development II: Market Transformation EAS 550 (STRATEGY 566) Systems Thinking for Sustainable Development and Enterprise EAS 575 Climate Economics and Policy
- EAS 550 (STRATEGY 566) Systems Thinking for Sustainable Development and Enterprise
- EAS 575 Climate Economics and Policy
- EAS 605 (BA 605) Green Development
- *ME 589 Sustainable Design of Technology System
- EHS 588 Environmental Law
- PUBPOL 563 (EAS 686, HMP 686) Politics of Environmental Regulation
Global engineering leadership
Engineering leaders are in demand to think strategically and to make an impact worldwide. This requires a strong mix of engineering and business skills, experience in different environments and the ability to lead diverse teams. In this field, you’ll enhance your ability to develop engineering and business solutions, build skills to lead across cultures and learn how to work and make decisions in a global community. You’ll also gain the tools to lead with purpose and strategy, creating sustainable products, services and processes that benefit people around the world.
Key competencies: Scoping and addressing global engineering challenges, managing international regulations and quality standards, global supply chain and risk management, cross-cultural decision-making and leadership, multicultural team management and international cultural competency.
Sample courses:
- *MFG 587 (MECHENG 587) Global Manufacturing
- BIOMEDE 588 (CHE 588) Global Quality Systems and Regulatory Innovation
- EAS 513 (STRATEGY 565) Strategies for Sustainable Development II: Market Transformation EAS 550 (STRATEGY 566) Systems Thinking for Sustainable Development and Enterprise ECON 435 Financial Economics
- FIN 480 Options & Futures in Corporate Decision Making
- FIN 551 Financial Management Policy
- FIN 615 Valuation
- FIN 647 Corporate Financial Strategy
- IOE 430 Global Cultural Systems Engineering
- MECHENG 589 (ISD 599) Sustainable Design of Technology Systems
- MFG 440 (IOE 440) Operations Analysis and Management
- MFG 455 (IOE 452) Corporate Finance
- MFG 501 (TO 701) Topics in Global Operations
- MFG 605 (TO 605) Manufacturing and Supply Operations
- MO 600 The Science of Success: Who Succeeds, Who Doesn’t, and Why
- MO 617 Developing and Managing High-Performance Teams
- NERS 531 (ENSCEN 531, EARTH 529) Nuclear Waste Management
Innovation and entrepreneurship
Innovation and entrepreneurship are at the heart of today’s engineering world. Whether you’re thinking big — like global companies — or small — like local startups — there’s a growing demand for sustainable products, services and technologies. In this field, you’ll learn to combine your engineering and design skills with business and innovation to solve complex problems. You’ll get the tools to become a true industry innovator, creating solutions that drive market success and help build a greener future.
Key competencies: Knowledge of market forces, financial insight, strategic thinking, negotiation, persuasion, ability to influence, creativity, business planning and integration.
Sample courses:
- ARTDES 651 Design Studio 1B Integration
- ARTSADMN 510 Arts Entrepreneurship Forum
- ARTSADMN 550 Arts Entrepreneurship Essentials
- *AUTO 533 Advanced energy solutions
- BIOMEDE 588 (CHE 588) Global Quality Systems and Regulatory Innovation
- *CEE 565 Seminars in Energy Systems
- *EAS 574 Sustainable Energy Systems
- EAS 565 Principles for Transition
- EAS 576 (CEE 588, CHE 590) Sustainability Finance: Investment Model for Green Growth ENGR 520 Entrepreneurial Business Fundamentals for Scientists and Engineers
- ENTR 500 An Introduction to Innovation: Tools for Career Success
- ENTR 530 Innovation and Intellectual Property Strategy
- ENTR 599 Innovation for Impact: Defense and Security
- ENTR 599 Reimagining Companies through Innovation
- ES 414 Professional Capstone: Entrepreneurship Practicum
- ES 515 Introduction to Entrepreneurship
- ES 516 Entrepreneurship via Acquisitions
- ES 715 Driving Innovation Processes/Innovative New Business Design
- FIN 629 (ES 629) Financing Technology Commercialization – A Venture Capital Hands-on Challenge IOE 506 (MATH 506) Stochastic Analysis of Finance
- MFG 587 Global Manufacturing
- MKT 625 New Product and Innovation Management
- PIBS 550 Biomedical Innovation and Entrepreneurship
- SI 663 Innovation Leadership Information
- SW 799 Social Entrepreneurship
- TO 638 (FIN 638) FinTech: Blockchain, Cryptocurrencies, and Other Technology Innovations
Program core (six credits)
- Course options include:
Systems analysis
Systems analysis is about studying a process or business to understand its goals and creating systems to achieve them efficiently. The benefits include lower costs, better efficiency and improved management and quality. In this field, you’ll learn to use optimization software, define problems creatively and tackle challenges in minimizing computational issues, focusing on both convex and global optimization.
Key competencies: Problem definition, linear and goal programming, convex optimization and global optimization.
Sample courses:
- *ISD 555 (MFG 555, MECHENG 555) Design Optimization
- AEROSP 483 Space System Design
- CEE 572 Dynamic Infrastructure Systems
- EECS 460 Control Systems Analysis and Design
- EECS 461 Embedded Control Systems
- MECHENG 561 (EECS 561) Design of Digital Control Systems
- NERS 561 Nuclear Core Design
Requirements management
Requirements management is about making sure your organization meets the needs of customers and stakeholders. These needs, called requirements, guide what your product should deliver. In this field, you’ll learn how to manage project data, keep information flowing smoothly across teams, spot and fix inconsistencies between teams’ decisions and understand key tools like data structures, programming, systems engineering and communication.
Key competencies: Data structures, programming, model-based systems engineering, configuration control and communication.
Sample courses:
- ENTR 560 Project Management and Consulting
- IOE 460 Decision Analysis and Bounded Rationality
- SI 506 Programming I
- SI 507 Intermediate Programming
- *MFG 555 Design Optimization
- SI 618 Data Manipulation and Analysis
- TO 616 Project Management
- TO 640 (MKT 640) Global Supply Chain Management
Test and evaluation
Test and evaluation ensures that systems meet their goals and progress from models to components to fully functional systems. In this field, you’ll learn how to design cost-effective experiments to verify and validate designs, study statistical analysis and evaluate the value of information to reduce risk and ensure quality at every stage.
Key competencies: Modern null hypothesis testing, quantitative analysis, statistics and value of information analysis.
Sample courses:
- *IOE 561 Risk Analysis 1
- *ISD 527 (MFG 527) Designing in Quality: A Design for Six Sigma
- MFG 461 (IOE 461) Quality Engineering Principles and Analysis
- PSYCH 613 (PSYCH 988–002, SOC 988–002) Advanced Statistical Methods I
- SI 544 Introduction to Statistics and Data Analysis
- SI 618 Data Manipulation and Analysis
- SIADS 631 Experimental Design and Analysis
Career pathways (nine credits)
- Course options include:
Design engineering
Design engineering focuses on using design principles and modeling to create products that work well and meet the needs of their users from start to finish. It’s a field where you’ll collaborate with engineers, marketers and customer representatives, recognizing that design involves both technical and social aspects. You’ll learn to create new products, combine data analysis with creative problem-solving and use insights from customer feedback to improve product designs.
Key competencies: Human-centered design, human-centered data analysis and creative synthesis.
Sample courses:
- DESCI 501 (MECHENG 455) Analytical Product Design
- *ISD 527 Design for Six Sigma
- *ISD 528 (MECHENG 452) Advanced Design for Manufacturability
- AEROSP 588 Multidisciplinary Design Optimization
- CEE 480 Design of Environmental Engineering Systems
- IOE 548 Integrated Product Development
- *MFG 528 Advanced Design for Manufacturability
- *ME 565 Battery Systems and Control
- MFG 535 (IOE 533) Human Motor Behavior and Engineering Systems
- MKT 630 Marketing Engineering
- PSYCH 711 (SURVMETH 630, SOC 711) Advanced Questionnaire Design
- SI 425 Introduction to User Modeling
- SI 617 Choice Architectures
- SI 622 Needs Assessment and Usability Evaluation
Risk and decision management
Wasted effort can come from things like unnecessary meetings, over-complicating designs, unclear requirements or poor work. Even good changes can cause extra work if they lead to unexpected problems. In this field, you’ll learn how to be a lean, agile and efficient engineer, using smart techniques to design products that meet both requirements and customer expectations without wasting time or resources.
Key competencies: Decision trees, value of information analysis, multi-attribute utility and discounting utility over time.
Sample courses:
- IOE 460 Decision Analysis and Bounded Rationality
- IOE 465 Design of Experiments
- IOE 525 Lean Principles and Scientific Thinking in Organizations
- IOE 551 Benchmarking, Productivity Analysis, & Performance Measurement
- MFG 466 (IOE 466) Statistical Quality Control
- *IOE 561 Risk Analysis 1
Model-based systems engineering
Model-based systems engineering is a formalized methodology used to support the requirements, design, analysis, verification and validation associated with the development of complex systems. In this field, you will learn the management of real-time information on design and verification requirements to support the project team and software skills in database management, programming and communication.
Key competencies: Database management, programming and communication.
Sample courses:
- EECS 484 Database Management Systems
- *MFG 555 Design Optimization
- SI 506 Programming I
- SI 507 Intermediate Programming
- SI 520 Graphic Design and Visual Communications
- SI 561 (EECS 595, LING 541) Natural Language Processing
- SI 608 Networks
Integrated mobility systems
Cargo and people get around using a mix of transportation systems including trucks, cars, trains, planes, ships, subways and more. Systems engineers play a key role in making these different transportation methods work together smoothly to solve mobility challenges. In this field, you can pursue careers in areas like mobility planning (for mass transit or personal travel), technical planning and project leadership, logistics engineering or working with data systems for transportation solutions with suppliers, companies or startups.
Key competencies: Multi-attribute optimization applied to social, governmental, technological and competitive dimensions, data analytics, transportation engineering reliability and safety analysis, logistics and human motor behavior.
Sample courses:
- DESCI 501 (MECHENG 455) Analytical Product Design
- DESCI 502 Design Process Models
- *ISD 520 Introduction to Systems Engineering
- *ISD 521 Development and Verification of System Design Requirements
- *ISD 522 Systems Engineering Architecture and Design
- *ISD 523 (IOE 561) Risk Analysis 1
- ISD 527 (MFG 527) Designing in Quality: A Design for Six Sigma
- CEE 450 Introduction to Transportation Engineering
- CEE 552 Travel Analysis & Forecast
- EECS 505 Computational Data Science and Machine Learning
- MFG 535 (IOE 533) Human Motor Behavior and Engineering Systems
- TO 621 Logistics
Smart civil infrastructure
Civil infrastructure and environmental systems are becoming smarter by adding technologies like decision-making systems, AI, sensors and feedback control. These technologies help infrastructures adapt to changing conditions, making them more reliable and resilient. They also allow real-time adjustments to improve efficiency and sustainability. In this field, you’ll dive into systems engineering concepts like control theory, optimization and sensing, with a focus on applications in civil and environmental engineering.
Key competencies: System and control theory, sensing technologies, signal processing and data analytics, optimization and risk-based decision theory.
Sample courses:
- *ISD 523 (IOE 561) Risk Analysis 1
- CEE 553 Infrastructure Optimization
- CEE 554 Data Mining in Transportation
- CEE 572 Dynamic Infrastructure Systems
- CEE 575 Sensing for Civil Infrastructure Systems
Engineering project management
Engineering project management involves leading and organizing an engineering team’s work to meet project goals within a set time and resource limits, all while dealing with the challenges of new technology. In this field, you’ll learn how to update and use information about the feasibility of designs, customer needs, adjust budgets, change timelines and targets to keep projects on track and successful.
Key competencies: Feasibility assessment, value assessment and project management.
Sample courses:
- IOE 460 Decision Analysis and Bounded Rationality
- IOE 548 Integrated Product Development
- MKT 625 New Product and Innovation Management
- MO 617 Developing and Managing High-Performing Teams
- TO 616 Project Management
Immersive practice (three to six credits)
- *ISD 503