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Preliminary Exams

After successfully completing the qualifying examinations, the student is formally admitted to the Ph.D. program. The next major requirement is to prepare and pass the Preliminary Examination. This exam must be completed by the end of the sixth semester (counting fall and spring terms) after admission to the Department. Please see the MatSE graduate student handbook for a complete description of rules and procedures.

The "prelim" is your opportunity to

1. define, in a written document of 10 pages or less, the goals and methods of your Ph.D. dissertation, in the form of a proposal that is well grounded in the scientific literature and contains data and analyses which you have acquired;
2. determine, in consultation with your advisor, the four or five faculty members who will serve as your Ph.D. committee; one of these must be from outside your area of specialization, and typically a professor is chosen from another department;
3. present your proposal to the members of your committee in the form of a short talk, normally 30 minutes in length;
4. discuss your proposal with your committee, and to gain valuable feedback on ways in which it can be improved.
5. Following a successful preliminary exam:
   you should use your committee members as a resource—consult with them periodically over the years about the progress, problems, and plans in your work.

The astute definition of your proposal is the most challenging and important single aspect of the Ph.D. process: your goals should advance the leading edge of knowledge in a significant aspect of materials science and engineering, and your methods should be calculated to achieve those goals.

The faculty members in MatSE clearly recognize that you cannot spell out a proposal which anticipates every detail of your future work. (Neither can we, when we write grant proposals to obtain research funding; i.e., each faculty member writes the equivalent of several prelim proposals every year of his/her career!) But as you go through the process of defining and redefining your proposal, you will cast aside many lesser goals and insufficient methods, become thoroughly versed in the literature and be obliged to take a stand on what is important to pursue.

Although your actual work will by necessity evolve from this starting point, the experience of the preliminary exam is guaranteed to shorten the time necessary for you to complete an excellent Ph.D. dissertation.

John R. Abelson
Director of Graduate Studies in MatSE
July 2004