Electrical and Computer Engineering, Ph.D.

Admission Requirements

Requirements for admission to the Graduate School includes English proficiency. In addition, applicants for the doctoral program in ECE must hold a baccalaureate degree or a master’s degree from an accredited institution in the United States or from a recognized institution in another country. A doctoral applicant who has earned a bachelor’s or master’s degree in electrical engineering, computer engineering, computer science, or a closely related discipline must have a minimum G.P.A. of 3.0 on a scale of 4.0. Each application must include a personal statement describing the applicant’s interests and career objectives, plus three letters of reference. Prospective applicants may be interviewed via video-conferencing technology. All applicants should submit GRE scores; however, a waiver may be given to applicants per request of the department. Admissions will be led by the graduate program advisor, but with input from a committee of faculty in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.

Undergraduate applicants with more than 12 hours (four courses) of deficiency are not eligible for admission. Applicants with fewer than 12 hours (4 courses) of deficiencies in electrical and computer engineering course work may be admitted conditionally to the doctoral program, but they will be required to remove those deficiencies by taking prescribed undergraduate courses and obtaining a grade of B or better in each deficiency course as soon as possible and within the first year. A complete list of the electrical and computer engineering undergraduate deficiency courses is available from the ECE department.

At the time of admission, PhD students who indicate that they need support in order to attend TU will also be notified of an offer of assistantship. Typically, students will be admitted with support for at least the first year, renewable for up to four years based on performance and funding availability. It is recognized that external funding may not have been formally secured for the following academic year. Nonetheless, faculty who make a good-faith projection that they will have an opening and are confident that funding will be secured can offer support to students. TU will guarantee the terms of the assistantship for the first year. In the event that funding falls through, the faculty agrees to work to find alternative funding for the student, externally (preferred) or through an internally funded assistantship.

General Examination

The General Exam requires an oral component and written component which must both be completed in the same semester. The written component must be passed before the oral examination can be attempted. Formal dissertation research begins after completion of the General examination. In the general exam, the student will be given a research problem statement provided by the advisor and approved by the PhD committee members. The student will be given one semester to investigate the problem and provide a written report that includes 1) background and related work, 2) research method(s) implemented to solve the assigned problem, 3) achieved results, and 4) discussion. The faculty advisor with the committee has the freedom to conduct the oral examination in different formats. For example, the advisor may 1) ask the student to defend his/her written component method and results, 2) examine the student on knowledge he/she studied during course work, or 3) a combination of presentation and knowledge examination. A student must complete the general examination within four years from the date of admission into ECE PhD if he/she has a master’s degree; otherwise, five years will be the limit. 

Preliminary Examination (Research Proposal)

The preliminary examination occurs after successfully completing the general examination and at least one semester before graduation. The exam requires written and oral components. The written component will normally be a dissertation proposal; the oral component is to defend the proposal. The student PhD committee chair must inform the ECE graduate liaison when the Preliminary Exam has been completed.

The time limit for completing all degree requirements is six years from the date a student begins his/her doctoral program. Throughout the degree program, the ECE student should maintain a minimum GPA of 3.0 on a scale of 4.0. If a student’s GPA drops below the minimum, the student is put on probation and given one year to recover to the acceptable minimum GPA. 

Curriculum Requirements

The following is the course requirements:

A minimum of 72 credit hours beyond the baccalaureate degree is required for the Ph.D.

All courses outside of ECE must have the approval of the student’s graduate program advisor and must be taken for a letter grade.

Candidacy

A PhD ECE is admitted to the PhD candidacy if the following conditions are met.

1. Be a doctoral student in good standing and not on probation.
2. A minimum of 48 credit hours can be earned in coursework and independent study. With the approval of the committee, these hours may include a maximum of 30 graduate credit hours with grade of B or better applied from the master’s degree.
3. Pass the General and Preliminary examinations.

Dissertation

The doctoral dissertation is the final and the most important component of the series of academic goals which culminate in the awarding of the doctoral degree. The dissertation is to be a work of original research scholarship which represents a patentable invention and/or material publishable in an archival publication. It should demonstrate the student’s ability to address a significant intellectual problem and arrive at a successful conclusion.

As mentioned above, each student will be required to successfully defend a Ph.D. research proposal before his/her advisory committee prior to being admitted to Ph.D. candidacy; generally, the same committee will preside over the student’s final Ph.D. dissertation defense.

Residency Requirements

An ECE PhD student with full-time employment may begin his/her PhD study program as part-time student while enrolling in courses. However, it is required that they become full-time students for at least18 credit hours while performing their dissertation research. Part-time study might be permitted if the student has already completed a Master’s degree and their research advisor submits a request that is approved by the graduate program liaison. Requests are evaluated based upon a credible explanation for why the research can be completed while still working full-time (e.g., the topic is related to the student’s work duties).

Final Defense

The final oral examination is a defense of the dissertation and is open to the public. The candidate will prepare and distribute reading copies of the dissertation to each doctoral committee member two weeks prior to the oral examination. The dissertation can only be accepted by the unanimous approval of the committee.

Advisory Committee

Students in the Ph.D. program will be advised initially by a graduate faculty member recommended by the graduate program advisor and approved by the Dean of the Graduate School. Students should select a general research area and a research advisor or co-advisors for the dissertation by the end of two semesters after enrollment in the program. The advisor or co-advisors, after consultation with the student, recommend the other members of the advisory committee to the Dean of the Graduate School.

The advisory committee ideally should be the same committee which was formed during the defense of research proposal by the student.  In circumstances where all the members are not available or cannot participate in the Ph.D. defense, the advisor can substitute one or more members of the original committee while following the same rules related to the composition of the committee. 

The advisory committee assists with the student’s program of coursework, approves the dissertation topic, and administers the final dissertation oral examination.