The curriculum is of great importance for the knowledge structure and academic ability of graduate students in engineering. Base on the curriculum of the author during Phd study in the United States and questionnaire research of international students with similar majors, this paper investigated the characteristics of the curriculum of engineering graduate programs from four aspects, including curriculum content, curriculum across majors, teaching and studying. Firstly, the curriculum of engineering graduate programs in the United States is more concise and comprehensive, which is very efficient to help graduate students obtain knowledge in a specific area and is the basis for independent academic ability. Secondly, curriculum across different majors extend the knowledge of students and are of good quality, which provided more opportunities for creativity in students’ future academic study. Thirdly, teaching involves studying specific software and tools and are close with the most recent advances in both industrial and academic area, which enable the graduate students to get access to academic research. Last but not the least, the study includes various homework and requires students to work independently, practicing the students’ ability to plan and work independently, which helps students’ creativity in academic research.