Prospective Students
What do I study inTSSE?

What is TSSE?

The Total Ship Systems Engineering Program is intended to contribute to thedevelopment of the Navy's ship and systems design leaders of the future. The program emphasizes the overarching need for integration among and across technologies and traditional disciplines to enable future warships to prevail against increasingly challenging threats. Students from the Electrical Engineering, Combat Systems Science and Technology and Mechanical and Astronautical Engineering curricula are eligible to participate. The program builds on the Masters Degree foundation of the eligible students by introducing them to systems engineering methods as well as various technologies important to the integration of modern warships. The program culminates in a team-performed Navy ship conceptual design.

What are the contents of the program?

Since 1991 the program has brought together students from the Mechanical, Electrical, Combat Systems Engineering, and other curricula. On top of the foundations of these curricula, the TSSE students learn Systems Engineering and design methods, systems integration and get major experience in team-performed design of a Navy ship. This is a strongly interdisciplinary program, within the engineering disciplines. These students have a firm grounding in an engineering discipline, they are given a strong basis in Systems Engineering and Integration and are challenged to exercise their expertise in a team design environment. In their ship design capstone they are required to deal with the entire breadth of ship design considerations (though, realistically, some areas are treated in greater depth than others, depending on the nature of the project in question). Is there team-work?You bet! In TSSE you will be part of a large interdisciplinary team and a team-of-teams! Not only you will participate in the platform design of your own TSSE team but you will also be a part of campus-wide team. As an example, you may be cooperating with the Systems Engineering Analysis (SEA) team of students. In such a cooperation you will learn how to proceed from an abstarct set of general requirements to a functional decomposition that ultimately leads into engineering solutions.

How do I find out more? 

• Explore the contents of this site. You will find all kinds of information on past student projects.
• Talk to the students or faculty members.

• If you're already at NPS see Prof. Didoszak.
• If you're not at NPS see your Detailer. Tell them you want to study in one of the many technical curricula offered at NPS and you want to participate in the Total Ship Systems Engineering program.