Certificate and Dual Degree programs

The University of Pennsylvania, a world leader in the advancement of teaching and research and a charter member of the Ivy Group, enjoys a century-old commitment to education. From the earliest ivy-covered structures to the latest post-modern additions, the art and architecture of the Penn campus reflect the University's traditional roots. It is a place where teaching embraces both theory and practice in keeping with founder Benjamin Franklin's admonition that we learn every thing that is useful and every thing that is ornamental. The educational experience at Penn is both intellectual and utilitarian; education that explores not only why, but how.

In addition to offering exceptional opportunities for graduate study from outstanding faculty to peerless facilities, what truly distinguishes Penn graduate programs is the synergy that combines rich resources across a spectrum of interdisciplinary pursuits. Unique among our peers in that all 12 graduate and professional schools are located on one self-contained, 260-acre campus, Penn profits from the close proximity of diverse faculty and facilities. Schools of business, law, medicine, social work, education, design, and communications live side by side with the outstanding liberal arts school, which freely shares its scientific, linguistic, social, and cultural expertise. With no boundaries dividing the schools, centers, and institutes that occupy the Penn campus, academic neighbors freely cross the boundaries of disciplines, creating a fresh vision of knowledge and expanding the intellectual worlds of both its uses and users.

DUAL DEGREES AND CERTIFICATE PROGRAMS
The School of Design places great emphasis on interdisciplinary study and offers a series of both dual degree options and certificates to enable students to take their creative and intellectual study and research in-depth across conventional departmental or program boundaries. All dual degree students in programs offered within the School of Design are required to complete an electronic advising worksheet accessible via Penn In Touch and have it approved by each department’s chairperson. Dual degree students in programs in coordination with other schools must file an approved study plan with the Office of Records and Registration, 110 Meyerson Hall, within the first term of matriculation into the dual degree program.

Interdisciplinary requirements:

• - In cases where dual degree students are not required to complete a joint interdisciplinary thesis or final project, each student will be required to submit one upper level course or studio project, taken in either department (or program), to advisors in both departments as evidence of an investigation simultaneously broaching topics in both disciplines.
• - Credit earned in a course taken jointly may apply towards both degrees, or degree and certificate. A course cannot be used to fulfill more than two requirements.
• - Certificates may be undertaken once a student has been admitted into a graduate degree program.
• - For dual degree programs offered within the School of Design, the amount of aid, both need- and merit-based, offered by one Department will be maintained by the second Department participating in a given dual degree program.
• - Students in dual degree programs will graduate when all courses, in both programs, have been satisfactorily completed.