To remain within the ECE PhD Program, students must continue to make acceptable academic progress, which includes but is not limited to remaining registered except during approved leaves of absence and making acceptable progress toward their PhD Program of Work, which is based on classroom coursework, and toward their PhD Dissertation research. Students admitted prior to fall 2018, with approval from their supervising professor(s), can choose to follow the older or newer rules, procedures, and expectations for academic progress. Students admitted in fall 2018 or later must follow the newer rules, procedures, and expectations for academic progress.
For more information, contact ECE Graduate Coordinator, Melanie Gulick, melanie.gulick@mail.utexas.edu, or visit Guides and Procedures | Texas ECE - Electrical & Computer Engineering at UT Austin (utexas.edu)
For students admitted prior to fall 2018 who choose to follow the older procedure, remaining within the ECE PhD Program includes finding a PhD Dissertation Supervisor; satisfying any academic-track-dependent PreQualifying requirements; establishing a PhD Qualifying and presumptive PhD Dissertation Committee, passing the PhD Qualifying Examination, and advancing to Candidacy; and, finally, writing and successfully defending their Dissertation, each within a reasonable time frame. For students admitted in fall 2018 or later who must follow the newer procedure, and for students admitted prior to fall 2018 who choose the newer procedure [with approval from their supervising professor(s)], remaining within the ECE PhD Program includes finding a PhD Dissertation Supervisor; establishing a PhD Dissertation Committee, performing the Candidacy Evaluation, and advancing to Candidacy; passing the Progress Review; and, finally, writing and successfully defending their PhD Dissertation, each within a reasonable time frame.
Older Procedure: Expectations for acceptable academic progress on Research
The following figure summarizes the itemized expectations for acceptable academic progress for research in terms of the required milestones and their upper time limits for completion, and illustrates how time is initially marked in course hours and then in years.
Toward defining these expectations, in the figure above, “course hours” and “attempted course hours” includes any hours of coursework attempted, completed or not, while within the Graduate Program at The University of Texas at Austin—which includes graduate and undergraduate classroom courses taken for a grade or credit/no credit and individual instruction courses such as MS Report, MS Thesis, internship, research problems, and PhD Dissertation courses—and any hours of coursework to be used toward a graduate degree at The University of Texas at Austin that were taken while not within the graduate program at The University of Texas at Austin—which may include graduate coursework from another institution not used toward an undergraduate degree and graduate coursework reserved for graduate credit while still an undergraduate at The University of Texas at Austin. (Note that the 33 hours of attempted coursework discussed here with regard to the expectations for acceptable academic progress on research is not to be confused with the 30 hours of graduate level regular classroom coursework to be used for the PhD program of work, although there will be overlap.)
Newer Procedure: Expectations for acceptable academic progress on Research
The following figure summarizes the itemized expectations for acceptable academic progress for research in terms of the required milestones and their upper time limits for completion, and illustrates how time is initially marked in course hours and then in years:
Toward defining these expectations, in the figure above, “course hours” and “attempted course hours” includes any hours of coursework attempted, completed or not, while within the Graduate Program at The University of Texas at Austin—which includes graduate and undergraduate classroom courses taken for a grade or credit/no credit and individual instruction courses such as MS Report, MS Thesis, internship, research problems, and PhD Dissertation courses—and any hours of coursework to be used toward a graduate degree at The University of Texas at Austin that were taken while not within the graduate program at The University of Texas at Austin—which may include graduate coursework from another institution not used toward an undergraduate degree and graduate coursework reserved for graduate credit while still an undergraduate at The University of Texas at Austin. (Note that the 33 hours of attempted coursework discussed here with regard to the expectations for acceptable academic progress on research is not to be confused with the 30 hours of graduate level regular classroom coursework to be used for the PhD program of work, although there will be overlap.)