Chemistry / Bachelor of Science to Master of Science in Chemistry/ Fast Track

The Chemistry Department offers a Bachelor’s to Master’s Fast Track option for Lewis University undergraduate Chemistry majors. All qualified Chemistry majors may take advantage of this Fast Track option. The Fast Track option allows qualified undergraduates to complete the graduate MS in Chemistry in less time than would be possible if the two programs were taken separately. Nine graduate hours may be used both to complete the Bachelor’s degree (128 hours) and to satisfy specific course requirements for the Master’s program. The total number of required graduate credits (30) will remain the same. Students apply for admission to the Fast Track option by submitting both the department application form and the Block Tuition Exemption form to the Program Director of the MS in Chemistry when they reach senior status (complete 90 credits) and have achieved an overall GPA of 3.0. Qualified students approved for the Fast Track option may apply financial aid to graduate courses and are exempt from the 18-hour block in the semesters when they take these select graduate courses. With planning, the MS in Chemistry could be awarded within one year of graduating with the Bachelor’s degree. Students who take 9 credit hours of selected graduate courses in Chemistry in their senior year and earn a grade of “B” or better in each of those courses will have to complete only 21 more credit hours to earn the MS. Students accepted into this Fast Track option are required to apply for admission to the MS in Chemical Physics program.

Listed below are graduate courses in the MS in Chemistry program which students enrolled in the Fast Track option may take during their senior year. Listed next to each is the undergraduate course for which it substitutes.

A student in this Fast Track option may apply no more than three of these courses toward his or her undergraduate Bachelor of Science major in Chemistry:

03-501 Chemical Thermodynamics substitutes for 03-498 Special Topics
03-502 Strategic Organic Chemistry substitutes for 03-401 Advanced Organic Chemistry
03-520 Strategic Organic Chemistry substitutes for 03-420 Advanced Chemical Laboratory Topics
03-601 Kinetics and Reaction Mechanisms substitutes for 03-402 Topics in Organic Chemistry
03-605 Applied Spectroscopy substitutes for 03-498 Special Topics
03-621 Materials Chemistry substitutes for 03-421 Polymer Chemistry
03-623 Supramolecular Chemistry substitutes for 03-422 Colloidal and Surface Chemistry