MSES - Program Overview
** 9/8/2020 UPDATE:
- The MSES program is now accepting applications for the 2021-22 cohort.
- The MSES program is now open to international students beginning with the 2021-22 cohort. All international applications must be received no later than February 15, 2021.
Northwestern University’s Master of Science in Energy and Sustainability (MSES) prepares students for public and private sector leadership roles in energy and sustainability – fields undergoing rapid technological, economic, and regulatory disruption. MSES combines a comprehensive core curriculum with a specialization track, allowing personalization for each student while maintaining a cohort experience. Focused, interdisciplinary curriculum provides critical professional training while limiting time out of the workforce, and facilitates student experience with industry partners and practitioners.
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Why Earn an MSES Degree?
Implementation of climate and energy solutions requires a new generation of leaders who can navigate the complex intersection of technology, economics, and public policy for energy and sustainability. Organizations increasingly recognize the materiality of these issues across their business lines and are investing in solutions and personnel. Job prospects are particularly bright – the marketplace accounts for nearly 7% of the US workforce, and is anticipated to grow at a pace well beyond the national average.
- Fast and Focused – Full-time, ten-month Master’s degree program provides strong professional training to deliver energy and sustainability solutions, while minimizing time out of the workforce.
- Important and Interdisciplinary – Empowering students to advance careers as leaders in one of the most important and fastest-growing global industries: energy and sustainability. By leveraging the full span of interdisciplinary expertise across the University’s schools and programs, graduates will be well-equipped to navigate the complex intersections of technology, finance, and public policy impacting the market today.
- Professional – Organizations are hungry for professionals who can bring skillsets across competency areas. Hands-on student exposure to industry practitioners through the MSES faculty body, field visits, and a capstone consulting project creates a powerful professional network for graduates.
Program Goals and Areas of Focus
Each MSES student undertakes a prescribed core curriculum that applies academic rigor across technology, economics, and regulation/policy related to the energy and sustainability landscape:
- Economics – Establish a strong fundamental knowledge base about the value chain surrounding critical resources such as power, gas, water, food, and transportation. Understand how value is created and destroyed and ensure a baseline view of key decision makers and stakeholders in the value chain.
- Technology – Prepare students with the foundational understanding of core hardware, software, and associated processes that allow for the creation / management of critical resources. Concepts such as electric grid operations, transportation systems basics, water treatment technology, and food value chain technologies would be amongst the topics covered. Students will not become experts in any single topic but they will have the tools to work with and communicate about resource management technology.
- Public Policy – Given the prominent role of policy in management of critical infrastructure resources like power, water, transportation, food, and gas, it is vital to any leaders’ success to understand how regulatory decisions are influenced, made, and changed. The power sector alone has more than 100 bodies that regulate its operation. MSES students should complete the Program with the knowledge of the major regulatory bodies that oversee each resource market and an understanding of how they work and what challenges they face.
Curriculum Overview
The strength of the MSES Program is its interdisciplinary approach, combining a prescribed core curriculum in technology, economics, and public policy with a student-selected specialization matching their career objectives. The nine-credit core and three-credit specialization provide critical professional training while limiting time out of the workforce, and offer hands-on exposure to industry partners and practitioners throughout the program. The curriculum is complemented by the practical application of energy and sustainability education through field visits and a capstone spring practicum project.
Specializations
Each MSES student will select one of the following three specialization options at the outset of Fall quarter. Each specialization has a unique set of elective courses that can be applied towards the completion of a student’s degree:
- Energy and Sustainable Finance
- Energy Technology
- Sustainability
Who should Apply?
MSES is designed for students seeking a career as a leader or a manager in an organization (civic, not-/for-profit, regulatory) within the energy and/or sustainability fields.
Ideal applicants will have a bachelor's or master's degree in:
- An engineering or an engineering-related field (e.g. engineering management);
- A social/natural science discipline with some quantitative and/or analytical background (e.g. chemistry, earth and planetary sciences, economics, environmental sciences, math/statistics, physics, etc.);
- Another social/natural science discipline without a quantitative and/or analytical background with subject-area relevance (e.g. history, political science, etc.), so long as the applicant can demonstrate such skills;
- A professional master’s degree (e.g. business administration, law, etc.).
Ideal applicants will be early/mid-career or have graduated with distinction in their field of study and have a demonstrable commitment to energy and sustainability through academic achievements, volunteer or summer work experience, student research and leadership activities, or other comparable experiences.