This page describes the requirements of the old Ph.D. program. Students have the option of graduating under this program if their first enrollment as graduate students at UT was in 2005 or earlier.
The Ph.D. is a research degree. Our Ph.D. students also take courses, which give them the foundation on which to build their research programs. But the overriding goal of the Ph.D. program is to show students how to do outstanding research. We expect all our Ph.D. students to become involved in research within their first semester here (see Research Immersion below) and continue their involvement throughout their time at UT. To get a good feeling for the way in which our Ph.D. students are involved in our research activities, browse our research web pages.
As a consequence of early immersion in research, our Ph.D. students are often already recognized in the wider research community well before they graduate. They regularly travel to conferences, present papers, and sometimes receive best paper awards.
Most Ph.D. students receive financial support from the department. Each year, approximately 12 incoming students are awarded doctoral fellowships, which guarantee support for four years. Additional students will be offered Teaching Assistantships. The department's faculty also brings in substantial research funding, much of which is used to support graduate students on Research Assistantships.
Students must have an undergraduate degree in computer science or an allied field such as engineering or math with appropriate CS background to be admitted into the Ph.D. program. Each student who is admitted must then satisfy the following requirements:
Most students have the equivalent of CS 345 (Programming Languages), CS 352 (Architecture), CS 372 (Operating Systems), and CS 375 (Compilers) at the time they are admitted. If students have specific deficiencies, such as missing prerequisites for graduate courses they wish to take, these deficiencies can be made up by taking appropriate undergraduate courses.
Doctoral students are required to enroll in a special research course CS 398T during their first semester in the program. (Students entering in Spring will be required to take this course the following Fall.) As part of this class, students will be expected to find a research supervisor with whom the student will work throughout the first year.
All doctoral students are required to enroll in and complete a research course, CS 395, each semester until they advance to candidacy.
Doctoral students may not enroll for 12 or more hours unless they receive special permission from the Graduate Advisor. Such permission is granted rarely and only based on written justification from the student's research supervisor.
Students satisfy this requirement by taking an approved set of 5 courses, 2 from each of two breadth areas and one from a third breadth area:
See Breadth Courses for a list of the breadth courses that are offered.
All courses used to satisfy this requirement must be completed with a grade of B or better, and a combined grade point average of 3.5 must be achieved on the 5 courses used to satisfy the breadth requirement. An overall grade point average of 3.1 must be maintained on all breadth courses taken.
may be used to fulfill some breadth requirements. A Breadth Course Waiver is granted when:
Students satisfy this requirement by taking a set of at least 3 courses related to their particular research interests. At most one of these courses may be outside the Computer Sciences Department; they are usually chosen from the CS department's list of graduate classes. Courses listed as breadth courses may be used as part of a depth program as long as they were not also used in the student's breadth program. No CS 395 (conference) or CS 398T course may be included in a depth proposal. All courses used to satisfy this requirement must be completed with a grade of B or better. A grade point average of 3.6 over all depth courses must be attained.
Students satisfy this requirement by giving at least three public presentations of approximately one hour's duration. Students have a variety of opportunities, such as seminar courses, for satisfying this requirement; presentations at conferences can also be counted. The dissertation proposal and defense may not be included. This requirement makes it imperative that students be able to communicate effectively and publicly in English. At least one of the oral presentations must be given prior to scheduling the dissertation proposal.
Each student must prepare a written dissertation proposal and then give an oral public presentation of the proposal. This will normally happen by the end of the third year. The student must, at this point, assemble a tentative dissertation committee that has been approved by the graduate advisor. That committee will examine the student on the proposal. If they are unanimously satisfied that the proposed work, if substantially completed, would constitute an acceptable dissertation and that the student has the potential for substantially completing the work, then they will recommend admission to candidacy. Admission to candidacy must be approved by the Department's Graduate Studies Committee and the Graduate School.
Each student must write a dissertation that describes original research and submit it to the members of his/her committee. There are many resources to help in writing a dissertation. The student will then give a public presentation and defense of the dissertation research. When the committee is satisfied with the dissertation, they will so inform the Graduate School.
A minimum grade point average of 3.0 must be maintained over all CS graduate courses. All course requirements must be completed with a six-year period. A minimum one-year residency after application to candidacy is required.
The Graduate School imposes a set of requirements on all graduate students, which must be met by all CS graduate students. These requirements deal with such issues as grades, courses taken in residence, transfer credit, and time limits.
