The PSM degree was initiated in 1997 with the support of both the Keck Foundation on the West Coast and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation on multiple university campuses. The purposes of this new type of degree are to meet the needs of government, business, and industrial employers and to provide an alternate professional career path for individuals with bachelor’s degrees in science or mathematics.
The typical 30 to 36 credit-hour PSM program combines:
- STEM graduate coursework;
- Complementary training in business, management, law or other professional subject matter; and
- An internship or project experience.
PSM Programs are developed in concert with employers and are designed to dovetail into present and future professional career opportunities. In a report issued July 11, 2008, the National Research Council strongly endorsed PSMs and recommended that new PSM programs in the natural sciences should be developed speedily, to prepare graduates needed by industry, government and non-profits to “manage science and spur innovation.”
The PSM programs now recruiting are of three kinds:
- Those that deepen a student’s knowledge beyond what can be learned in a four-year course of study, but stay within a disciplinary domain;
- Those that fuse scientific fields at a level of depth and complexity hard for undergraduates to achieve; in many cases, the fusion may be with computer or information sciences; and,
- Those that integrate study in the natural sciences and mathematics with knowledge and training in management, law, or other professional domains.
Helpful Resources
- AAAS News Release: Underrepresented Minority Scientists Encouraged to Seek International Collaborations to be Competitive
- Poster: Launching the Mid-Atlantic HBCU PSM Alliance (PDF file)
