The overall educational objective of the Systems Engineering program, including the MSSE program, is to support the NPS mission by producing graduates who have, at an advanced level, knowledge and technical competence in systems engineering and an application domain; and who can use that knowledge and competence to support national security. Specific program objectives (i.e., skills and abilities that graduates can bring to their position after having graduated from NPS and receiving 3-5 more years of on-the-job training and professional development) are:

• Technical Leadership: Graduates will be known and respected for applying their engineering knowledge in leadership roles along diverse career paths in government service;
• Program Management: Graduates will be known and respected for their research, design, development, procurement, integration, maintenance, and life-cycle management of systems for defense and national security
• Operational Utilization: Graduates will be known and respected for their application of systems engineering in diverse military settings and understand its capabilities and limitations.

In order to achieve the MSSE Program educational objectives , graduates must complete at least one year of study, or at least 45 quarter credit hours, beyond a baccalaureate level program, achieve a mastery of systems engineering, and complete a thesis or capstone project report, where each student attains outcomes demonstrating competency in

1.  Subject Matter Competence: Advanced mathematics, including probability and statistics, and computing fundamentals, with practical applications thereof;
2.  Technical Merit: Engineering topics necessary to define, synthesize, analyze, design, and evaluate complex systems containing hardware and software, and human elements (where appropriate), in a holistic manner across the lifecycle.
3. Engineering Reasoning: Systems design and analysis topics, such as decision analysis, risk analysis (cost, schedule and performance), trade-off analysis, optimization, modeling-based engineering, simulation, sensitivity analysis techniques, or requirements engineering;
4. Communication: Communicate results both orally and in writing.

In addition to attaining these student outcomes, each student will have had post-secondary educational and/or professional experiences that supports that attainment of student outcomes as defined in the ABET EAC general criteria for baccalaureate programs, Criterion 3; and includes at least one year of math and basic science, at least one-and-a-half years of engineering topics, and a major design experience that meets the requirements in the general criteria for baccalaureate programs, Criterion 5. Students that have attained an ABET EAC accredited undergraduate degree meet these post-secondary requirements. (See Criteria for Accrediting Engineering Programs, 2025 – 2026.)

The Systems Engineering Department at NPS offers the following seven Master of Science (MS) and two Philosophy Doctor (PhD) curricula (click on the curriculum below for details):

The Systems Engineering department offers four curricula contributing to the MSSE Program as follows:

Resident Modality (First accredited off-cycle, in 2010, and reaccredited in 2013-2014 and 2019 -2020)

• 580 resident curriculum, 7-8 quarters (33 courses, 4+ per qtr.), two starts a year (Fall, Spring)
• 308 resident curriculum, 8 quarters (32 courses, 4+ per qtr.), one start a year (Fall)

Non-resident Modality (First accredited off-cycle, in 2010, and reaccredited in 2013-2014 and 2019 -2020)

• 311 DL curriculum, 8 quarters (16 courses, 2 per qtr.), four starts a year (each quarter)
• 312 DL curriculum, 8 quarters (8 courses, 1 per qtr.), two starts a year (Fall, Spring)

The course content for these four curricula varies, but has the common core as shown below:

The options available within each curriculum are visualized below: