Each student will be required to take a comprehensive examination which will test the student’s comprehension of his/her broad field of research and his/her academic preparation and potential to carry out the proposed research plan. The comprehensive examination should be a combination of written and oral examination and should be separately conducted before evaluation of the research proposal.
A Full-time student is given a maximum of 18 months and a Part-time student gets a maximum of 24 months to complete the requirements of the comprehensive examination from the time of joining. After passing the comprehensive examination, the student becomes a Candidate for the PhD degree.
The comprehensive area subjects are divided into three broad areas covering breadth: Theory, Systems, and Applications.
Each PhD student must show proficiency in these three areas. Proficiency in an area can be demonstrated by:
The course must have been taken in the previous three years to count towards the comprehensive exam. The course cannot be a Project/Independent Study course, nor a Special Topics course. If a course is included in multiple specializations, it will count towards only one of the three required areas. Advanced undergraduate courses in one of the specialization areas may also satisfy the comprehensive criterion on approval by SRC and DRC.
The courses that can be counted in each bucket are as follows. The ones marked * are present in more than one bucket.
A student gets a maximum of two attempts to pass an area. The course(s) to be done in each area should be decided by the student in consultation with the supervisor and SRC, and the plan must be communicated to the DRC by the end of the first semester.
The Courses of Study document captures requirements for Phd comprehensive at institute level. The document can be found here.
CSE courses in the new curriculum have 4-digit codes COL####, where the first digit indicates the level, and the second digit, typically between 1 and 7, indicates the the broad area of computer science.
Each PhD student must show proficiency in three of these areas. Proficiency in an area can be demonstrated by:
The course must have been taken in the previous three years to count towards the comprehensive exam. The course cannot be a Project/Independent Study course, nor a Special Topics course. If a course is included in multiple specializations, it will count towards only one of them.
All three courses should be from different areas, with the restriction that at least one course is from area 1 or 2, and at least one course from areas 3-6. Further, there are a few special cases for courses not in areas 1-7:
A student gets a maximum of two attempts to pass an area. The course(s) to be done in each area should be decided by the student in consultation with the supervisor and SRC, and the plan must be communicated to the DRC by the end of the first semester.
The Courses of Study document captures requirements for Phd comprehensive at institute level. The document can be found here.
The comprehensive examination requirements are slightly different for SIT owing to its interdisciplinary focus. The requirement to show proficiency in 3 of the above computer science fields is waived off. Instead, students in SIT are required to write a detailed survey report on a chosen research topic and present the same to the committee. All other requirements remain the same.