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An ECE PhD student is expected to advance to doctoral candidacy within one year after attempting and/or completing 33 or more credit hours of coursework within the Graduate Program, excluding approved leaves of absence. The accumulation of attempted or completed credit hours includes individual instruction courses like Research Problems. The first semester after you attempt or complete 33 or more credit begins the year in which you're expected to complete the steps listed below. Advancing to doctoral candidacy should be done as soon as a general research area and topic have been identified. You are not considered a PhD candidate until you have advanced to candidacy officially.
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Your candidacy and PhD dissertation will be overseen by the same committee of faculty members. This committee will consist of five or six members, including your the supervisor(s) . At least three members must be on the ECE GSC, and ECE must be the home department of at least two of the three ECE GSC members. At least one member of your committee must be external, and not a member of the ECE GSC. and other members from within as well as external to the ECE GSC as described HERE. The process of forming this committee and approval of the committee is comprised of several steps listed below, and can often take more than a month to complete.
| Step 1 of 6: | With the assistance of your faculty supervisor, identify and contact potential committee members to ask for their general willingness to serve on your committee. Students should provide a 1 to 2 page abstract of the proposed research and an informal PhD Program of Work (list of coursework) when contacting potential members. Agreement to serve on your committee is the first step. |
| Step 2 of 6: | When you have tentative agreement from your proposed committee members, email your Track PhD Coordinator and request that your committee be announced to the ECE GSC, Graduate Studies Committee. Provide your full name, your EID, your academic track, a working title of your dissertation (this is not necessarily the final title), the full names of your committee members with labels identifying their roles (supervisor; co-supervisor, if you have one; member; external member), and a Word or pdf copy of the external member's CV (Curriculum Vitae, or academic resume). |
| Step 3 of 6: | Your committee will be reviewed and approved by the ECE GSC on a no-protest basis over a period of 2 weeks. Please wait for confirmation of committee approval from the Graduate Advising Team before moving onto the Candidacy Evaluation process. |
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| Step 6 of 6: | You must wait for approval and for email instructions from the Graduate Advising Team before applying online for admission to doctoral candidacy. Once you receive the instructions from the Graduate Advising Team, apply as instructed within two weeks of receiving the instructions. Your application will be reviewed and approved electronically by your supervisor(s), the ECE Graduate Advisor, the chair of the ECE GSC (Graduate Studies Committee), a Doctoral Degree Evaluator in the Graduate School, and a Dean in the Graduate School. This process can take time, so be prepared to be patient. Once the Dean approves your application, you are an official doctoral candidate. f If you get admitted to candidacy after the 12th class day in fall or spring (or 4th day in summer), but it is still within the first half of the semester, you may be able to get added to a Dissertation W even though the 12th class day (4th day in summer) has passed. You need to already be registered for Research Problems for 3, 6 or 9 hours before the 12th class day (4th day in summer) in order to do this late drop/add. Please check with us the graduate advising staff to see if you qualify for the late drop/add. |
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