Masters Equivalent Coursework if Applicable (32 credit hours)
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It is sometimes the case that a student finds a faculty advisor outside of ISE. This is completely fine; however, you must also have a faculty advisor from ISE who will serve as your advisor as well. In this case, both the faculty member outside of ISE and the faculty member in ISE would serve as co-advisors. Please alert the Graduate Programs Office to this and we will provide you with details on how to add your faculty member from outside of ISE.
Qualifying Examinations
Qualifying Examinations are required of all ISE PhD students and consists of two components – the written exam and the oral exam. More information about each component is provided later in this section.
This examination serves as a screening device for selecting qualified doctoral candidates. In addition, the examination permits early identification of deficiencies of otherwise qualified candidates so that remedial action can be taken. Admission to PhD candidacy is based on the faculty's evaluation of the student's research potential, scholastic competence as evidenced by grades, and satisfactory performance on the PhD Qualifying examination. The written exam is offered at the beginning of both the fall and spring semesters. The oral exam is offered near the middle of both the fall and spring semesters.
When the Qualifying Exams are Held
The written portion of the qualifying exam is typically held on or around the following dates:
- Fall Exams – on or around September 1
- Spring Exams – on
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- or around February 1
The oral portion of the qualifying exam is typically held on or around the following dates:
- Fall Exam – on or around October 15
- Spring Exam – on or around March 15 (will be before/after spring break when there is a conflict)
The oral exam scheduling varies based on when the faculty completes their grading of the written exams, when the committee can be scheduled, etc.
Registering for the Qualifying Exam
To be permitted to take the qualifying exams, all students must meet the following requirements:
- A signed Advisor Agreement Form must be on file
- 8 credit hours of 500-level coursework must be completed in IE and/or SE courses, other than the thesis credit courses (IE or SE 599).
- A grade point average of at least 3.25 must have been attained on all graduate coursework completed.
Students seeking PhD candidacy must register their intention to take the qualifying exam with the Department.
Students will be notified via email to sign up with the following schedule:
- Fall Exams – registration opens June 1 with a deadline of July 1
- Spring Exams – registration opens November 1 with a deadline of December 1
Results of the Qualifying Examination
The decision to pass or fail a student will be made by the graduate faculty of the Department following the qualifying exam and will be made on the basis of the score in the written qualifying exam, grades in formal courses, and the recommendation of the thesis advisor.
There are several scenarios that can result from the Qualifying Examination:
- A student who fails any portion of the Qualifying Exam may repeat the examination in the subsequent semester.
- A student who fails two or three of the one‐hour written exams will not be allowed to take the oral qualifying exam until the following semester.
- A student who is “borderline” on a written exam can be provided a conditional pass with the provision that he/she takes appropriate remedial course(s).
- A “fail” on the first attempt requires the student to repeat the written qualifying exam for that area.
- A student who fails the examination twice will not be allowed to continue in the PhD program.
ISE Written Qualifying Examination Guidelines
The ISE written qualifying exam will consist of three one-hour written examinations in one-hour time blocks scheduled on three separate days. Each one-hour portion will cover material from 1 of 3 courses. These exams will be graded as “pass/borderline/fail”. The faculty will ratify the results of the written qualifying exam at the monthly faculty meeting following the written exam.
The written exam will be held within three weeks of the start of each semester. This exam is open note, open book. Students may not bring calculators, cell phones, computers, tablets, or other electronic devices. A calculator will be provided.
The PhD candidate will select one research concentration from the following areas:
- Decision and Control
- SE 320 (Control Systems)
- SE 424 (State Space Design for Control)
- SE 520 (Analysis of Nonlinear Systems – Crosslisted as ECE 528/ME 546/)
- Study Materials
- Design and Manufacturing
- SE 413 (Engineering Design Optimization)
- Choose 2 -- IE 546 (Human Factors in Health Care Engineering Systems; temporarily approved for Fall 2021 & Spring 2022), SE 410 (Component Design), SE 411 (Reliability Engineering), SE 412 (Nondestructive Evaluation), SE 450 (Decision Analysis I), SE 530 (Multiattribute Decision Making)
- Study Materials
- Operations Research
- IE 410 (Advanced Topics in Stochastic Processes & Applications)
- IE 411 (Optimization of Large Systems)
- Choose 1 -- IE 510 (Applied Nonlinear Programming), IE 511 (Integer Programming), IE 512 (Networking Analysis of Systems), or IE 521 (Convex Optimization)
- Study Materials
ISE Oral Qualifying Examination Guidelines
The second component of the Qualifying Exam is an oral examination. The 45-minute oral examination will be based primarily on a presentation made by the student to a three-person oral examination committee (OEC) within the candidate’s research concentration.
The OEC will assign the student one journal paper to critically appraise during the oral exam in terms of:
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- overall significance
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- influence on the development of the field
- possible future research directions in the area of the paper, and
- connections to the student’s research interests.
The paper will be emailed to the student 2 weeks in advance.
The presentation should be 25 minutes in length, leaving 20 minutes for questions. Questioning may range beyond the material in the assigned paper, and may include questions relating to the student’s written examination problems. To avoid conflict of interest, no papers authored or co‐authored by departmental faculty or affiliate faculty will be assigned for the oral examination.
Students should not expect to defend their research in the Oral Examination.
Breadth Requirement
PhD candidates are required to take three courses outside of their research concentration, as a part of the breadth requirement. The student must communicate these courses to the ISE Graduate Programs Office via a departmental petition before taking the Preliminary Exam. This approval should be sought before registering for these courses. Courses that satisfy the breadth requirement include 400-598 level courses that are in a STEM field. This includes courses in the College of Engineering, Agricultural & Biological Engineering (ABE), or Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering (CHBE). Industrial Engineering PhD students can count SE courses. Likewise, Systems & Entrepreneurial PhD students can count IE courses. If you wish to take courses outside of these fields, you should include a justification in your departmental petition when submitting your breadth requirement courses.
Your Breadth Requirement should be submitted via departmental petition and approved before taking your Preliminary Examination.
Preliminary Examination
The Preliminary Examination is intended to prove the student is making satisfactory progress toward the PhD and may be taken any time after successful completion of the Qualifying Examination (both written and oral). The Preliminary Examination will consist of a written Dissertation Proposal and an oral presentation before the student's Doctoral Examination Committee. The examination is taken upon completion of all required coursework for the PhD degree, or the semester in which the final unit of coursework is taken, but no sooner. A student must be registered for the entire semester in which they take the Preliminary Examination.
Passage of the Preliminary Examination will be determined based upon the vote of the Preliminary Examination Committee. A student who fails the Preliminary Examination must wait a minimum of six months before retaking the examination.
ISE requires a minimum of six months between the preliminary and final examinations.
Choosing your Preliminary Exam Committee
A Preliminary Exam Committee consists of a minimum of three members of the graduate faculty in addition to the advisor who will serve as chair of the committee. At least one member of your committee must be from outside the Department, at least two from the ISE Department, and the majority should be from the College of Engineering. This committee is appointed by the Graduate College in accordance with the departmental request which is initiated by the student (see the 'scheduling your prelim exam' section below). You can find additional information on the Graduate College Prelim & Final Exam Committee Request website.
The Dissertation Proposal
The written dissertation proposal shall be no more than 20 double spaced pages in length including introductory pages, figures, etc. It should include: statement of proposed research, its objectives and significance; a brief review of previous work on related research; and a short discussion of tentative methods of analysis and/or experimentation. There are no specific format requirements for the proposal. Individual advisor requirements override.
Scheduling your Prelim Exam
- at least 6 weeks prior – decide on a date/time in consultation with your advisor and reserve the room for your exam with the staff in 117 Transportation Building. Your room should hold at least 7 people and should be reserved 2 hours and 15 minutes – 15 minutes prior to your exam time to allow for setup and 2 hours for the exam portion. It is best to avoid the hours of 10 am - 2 pm, as the Transportation Building is busiest during these times. Please note – prelim exams can be conducted in-person or via Zoom.
- at least 3 weeks prior – select a Doctoral Examination Committee in consultation with your advisor and submit a Graduate College Preliminary Exam Request (PER) through the Graduate College Student Portal.
- at least 1 week prior – submit your Dissertation Proposal to your committee