General Procedure
The Program of Study form must be completed near the end of the PhD student's first semester of study.
The sample form in LaTeX form or MS Word form can be edited and completed by the student. The completed
form is then printed and signed by the student's Coursework Committee. The completed form is then
submitted to the Academic Office and appears in the student's file.
The form may be changed at any time. If the Required Coursework part is changed, then the Coursework
Committee must sign the new form. Other parts may be changed and resubmitted without requiring
signatures.
Required Coursework
In this part of the form, the student lists courses that will be required. This essentially becomes a
contract between the student and the Coursework Committee. The student should propose courses that
demonstrate sufficient depth, breadth, and preparation for the PhD Qualifying Exam. Note that this part
of the form usually does NOT include all course that the student plans to take. Instead, the list
represents core requirements that must be satisfied at some point by the student.
This part can be imagined as a replacement for the required courses in the previous curriculum.
In that case, 4 courses were required: 1 in systems, 1 in theory, and 2 in a particular research
specialty. Consider what would constitute the personalized replacement for that. A typical
number of courses to place in this part would be 4 to 6. It is also possible to provide
alternatives. For example, one requirement might be to take CS 546 or CS 548.
Strategy
The purpose of this part is to help the Coursework Committee and other faculty during annual progress
evalations to determine the motivation for selecting the particular required coursework. This will help
them in giving helpful suggestions and in deciding whether to approve the Program of Study. In most
cases, the Strategy part will be no more than a couple of sentences.
Intended Coursework
This part simply indicates planned coursework so that the student may get helpful feedback from faculty.
The plan for at least four semesters should be included. It does not have to be followed exactly by the
student. Furthermore, some ambiguity is allowed. For example, a student might want to take a topics
(CS 598) course, but the particular topic might not be determined yet.