Qualifying Examination

Starting from spring 2007, the Ph.D. qualifying examinations will have the following format. There will be two written examinations: (1) the Breadth exam and (2) the Depth exam. Each exam will have duration of three hours.

 

Breadth exam:

This exam evaluates the student's breadth of knowledge in Electrical and Computer Engineering. This exam is usually conducted at the end of April in the spring semester and at the beginning of November in the fall semester. In this exam the student will be required to answer 4 questions:

• One question on engineering mathematics: The student will be able to choose one question from a set of questions that will cover all concentration areas (i.e. communications and signal processing, computer engineering, control systems, analog/mixed signal/RF electronics circuits, optoelectronics and microelectronics, and power systems). Click here to view the complete reading lists for questions on engineering mathematics.

• Three questions from selected undergraduate courses of ECE: Questions will be available from six different concentration areas. The student can answer any three by selecting not more than two questions from the same concentration area (i.e. the three questions chosen should not all be from the same concentration area). Complete reading lists along with samples of these questions in all six areas may be found here.

 

Depth exam:

This is used to evaluate the student's depth of knowledge in his/her chosen area of research. This will be conducted by the student's advisory committee and must be completed by the end of the semester following the semester when the student passes the Breadth Exam. It is the student's responsibility to get in touch with his or her advisor after passing the Breadth exam to schedule the depth exam and determine its contents.

The recommended content of the depth exam will be topics from three different courses as decided by the student's advisory committee to be the most relevant courses required for depth of knowledge to perform his/der doctoral research. Each student may have his or her own selection of courses for the Depth exam as prescribed by the advisory committee. The following are two examples of courses that could comprise of the depth exam:

Example-1: ECGR-5187 Data Communications, ECGR-6120/8120 Wireless Communications and Networks, and ECGR-6090/8090 Performance Analysis of Communication Networks.

Example-2: ECGR-5122 Random Processes and Optimal Filtering, ECGR-5123 Digital Signal Processing, and ECGR-6118 Applied Digital Image Processing.