MCDB Graduate Student Handbook
Throughout your career as a Ph.D. student in MCDB, you will be expected to maintain something called "normal progress toward the degree." "Normal progress" means that you are moving through the series of steps necessary to obtain a Ph.D. degree at a reasonable pace, and at the level of performance we require of all our doctoral students.
These steps are outlined below, and described in detail in the following sections.
- Maintenance of a 3.0 grade point average in all formal coursework
(100- and 200- level courses); reasonable progress in completing required
coursework.
- Selection of a thesis advisor and initiation of Ph.D. thesis work
at the beginning of the second year in residence.
- Completion of the Departmental Written Qualifying Examination (DWQE)
by the end of the second year of graduate study. The DWQE requirement
is satisfied through the completion of the following two components:
1) two mini research proposals written in connection with selected
courses and seminars; 2) Formal constitution of the Doctoral Committee,
as well as submission and subsequent presentation of a written proposal
for the student's dissertation research at the first Doctoral
Committee meeting. (See Section F below).
- Completion of the Doctoral Oral Examination and advancement to
candidacy by January of the third year in residence.
- Annual meetings with your Doctoral committee after you have advanced
to candidacy (ATC).
- A midstream seminar between passing the University Oral Qualifying Examination and defending the thesis, but in no case later than the start of the fifth year of doctoral study.
Failure to maintain these standards, as determined by the Graduate Advisor, will automatically render you ineligible for MCDB financial support, and may lead to dismissal from the program.
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