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.
Preliminary Examination
A PhD exam planning document is available to all students to assist with planning the timeline for their exams and studies.
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 ExaminationYou've almost made it! You have entered the final stage and the final examination and thesis deposit are very much an integrated process. When you schedule your final exam, this puts into motion both the final exam approvals and the thesis/dissertation approvals.
Final Examination
The Final Examination may be taken no earlier than six months after successful passing of the preliminary examination. Prior to scheduling, the student must select a Doctoral Examination Committee in consultation with his/her advisor and submit a Request for Appointment of Doctoral Examination Committee at least 3 weeks prior to the exam and submit the Dissertaion Proposal at least 1 week prior to the exam to to the Graduate Programs Office. The Preliminary Examination will consist of a written Dissertation Proposal and an oral presentation before the Doctoral Examination Committee. Passage of the Preliminary student must submit their dissertation to their committee at least 2 weeks prior to the exam. Passage of the Final Examination will be determined based upon the vote of the Doctoral 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..
Please keep in mind that you must be registered for at least 1 course during your final exam semester.
Thesis Deposit
The Graduate College has an extensive deposit checklist that you should follow. Here are a few notes in relation to that checklist:
- You should view the Graduate College Thesis Requirements for templates and sample pages to make sure your thesis is following the correct formatting.
- When it is time for the format review with your department, send a PDF version of your thesis via email to ise-grad@illinois.edu via attachment or Box link. This should be sent for review at least two weeks prior to the posted thesis deadline. Once your thesis is format reviewed, you will receive suggestions/approval via email. The ISE Grad Programs Office will submit the Thesis/Dissertation Approval Form to the Graduate College after your thesis review is complete, on your behalf.
- Please make sure you list Lauren Redman, lredman@illinois.edu, as the thesis format reviewer when submitting your thesis.
- It is not uncommon for the Graduate College to require some corrective revisions/editing. Make sure you complete these right away!
- All of your 599/thesis grades will be updated from "DFR" once your thesis has been approved/accepted by the Graduate College.
The Graduate College also requires several workshops that may be helpful leading up to your thesis deposit.