Supervisory committee formation

• Chair = biology faculty and graduate faculty with endorsement to chair
• >3 members Biology faculty (regular, research, emeritus, joint, adjunct, or affiliate), and at least half regular Biology faculty
• >2 members and majority of committee graduate faculty with endorsement to chair
• GSR = Graduate School Representative, a graduate faculty member with endorsement to chair who does NOT have a primary or joint appointment in Biology

General exam

• Meet collectively with your committee in autumn. Bring the Pre-General Exam Report for committee members to fill in. Based on conversation at this meeting, prepare a 1-page summary of how you will prepare for the exam (for instance, what you will read and topics to study) and circulate this to the committee for comment.
• As you are reading, convert some of these ideas and background into a research proposal (5-8 pages, or as recommended by your committee). Focus on conceptual synthesis, broad significance, and research design and analysis. 3 weeks prior to the general exam, send out your research proposal. Remind committee members to get written comments back to you within ONE WEEK (they voted on this).
• Set a date/time and get a room early. Schedule your examonline.
• Do a mock oral exam – this is not required but highly encouraged to get more of a “feel” for the process. Select grads who have already taken exams from your committee members to impersonate them and ask likely questions.
• At the real exam, spend 20-30 minutes presenting your proposal, then up to a total of 3 hrs answering questions.

You may provide General Exam Report forms to your committee members, so that they can provide some written feedback on your exam to aid future progress in graduate school. Realistically, you might encourage committee members to provide their comments a few days after the exam, so they don’t have to be writing during the exam, and you have a little distance from the event. These forms were developed by Bio grads.

Spring 2^nd year: Request exam and warrant online at least 1 week ahead of time. Return warrant to Graduate Program Administrator. 

Retakes must occur within 3 months.

Research proposal

3 weeks before exam

Annual committee meeting. You must meet with your committee annually.  For faculty that are on sabbatical, they may Skype or conference call into the meeting.  There are 3 documents each year:

• 2-5 page Research Progress report
• Graduate Student Annual Report form, including meetings, activities, and funding
• Supervisory Committee Annual Report form.

Provide the Research Progress and Annual Report to your committee ahead of time.

Dissertation 

Determine a Reading Committee (3 committee members) and tell Graduate Program Administrator. Write. Receive feedback. Revise. Only the title and signature pages require special grad school formatting. Two print copies are required by the grad school.

Dissertation draft 6 weeks before exam. Turn in dissertation before the end of thee quarter in which you defended.

Final exam

Schedule your exam online