Team-taught introductory course that emphasizes a multidisciplinary approach to current topics in the range of academic disciplines and gives students their first exposure to faculty research areas. The course, as much as possible, will involve faculty from all participating campuses, will involve outside industry speakers to present topics of contemporary importance, and will offer joint lectures from guest speakers. This course should be taken in a student's first semester in the program if possible.

A culminating experience in which the student synthesizes his/her course knowledge and experimental skills into a brief but detailed experimental study, which also involves cross-field interdisciplinary cooperation. Although in some cases this project may be done individually under the supervision of one faculty member, it is expected that students will join in a team-based, collaborative effort involving students from a number of different disciplines, post-doctoral fellows and industry representatives and with intercampus participation.

Doctoral students' research in progress, emphasizing not only research but also communication and writing. Every active doctoral candidate will present her or his work in progress in the seminar, and in addition there will be at least two presentations from external speakers. Students will write summaries of each presentation. Students must complete this course in at least two different semesters. Course is graded pass-fail.