Ph.D. Qualifying Exam
Procedures and Regulations
Doctoral Student’s Responsibilities
With respect to the Qualifying Examination, the doctoral student in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering is responsible for satisfying the departmental requirements listed below. These requirements are in addition to those set by the College of Engineering in the Interdisciplinary Doctoral Procedures document and by The University of Akron in the Graduate Bulletin.
I. The student must take the Qualifying Examination as the first required step in the Ph.D. program.
ECE students must take the Qualifying Examination during the first semester of doctoral study. The formal appointment of the Dissertation Director and the Interdisciplinary Doctoral Committee, and the subsequent approval of the courses for the Plan of Study, may occur only after the Qualifying Examination has been passed.
II. The student must complete a Ph.D. Qualifying Examination Notification Form (attached) to notify the Graduate Policy Committee (GPC) of his or her intent to take the Qualifying Examination, and to choose the areas in which he or she wishes to be examined. The Notification Form must be submitted to the GPC Chair no later than three weeks prior to the written exam. A refusal to submit the Notification Form and sit for the exam constitutes a failed attempt.
III. The student must pass the Qualifying Exam in at most two attempts. A student who fails the first attempt must take the exam again the next semester. A refusal to make a second attempt at that time will constitute a second failure. Students who fail the exam twice will be dismissed from the Ph.D. program.
Qualifying Exam Procedures
I. The Ph.D. Qualifying Exam shall consist of a written portion and, if recommended by the ECE Faculty, of an oral portion hereinafter referred to respectively as the written exam and the oral exam. The Qualifying Exam shall be administered by the Chair of the Graduate Policy Committee (GPC), or by his or her representative.
II. The Qualifying Exam shall be administered every Fall and Spring semester. The written exam shall be administered in the Fall semester on the
third Friday of November and in the Spring semester on the Friday of Spring
Break. The written exam shall not be offered at any other times without the expressed approval of the GPC and the ECE Department Faculty.
III. The written exam shall consist of two three-hour sessions, a morning session from 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 noon and an afternoon session from 1:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m.
IV. The Qualifying Exam shall cover the following ECE areas of specialization:
- Analog Electronics and Circuits
- Communications and Signal Processing
- Computer Software
- Control Systems
- Digital Hardware Systems
- Electromagnetic Fields
- Power Electronics and Motor Drives
ECE students shall be tested in three of the seven areas, and Engineering Applied Mathematics students shall be tested in two of the seven areas. Students shall choose the areas in which they shall be tested. Students shall notify the GPC of their chosen areas no later than three weeks before the written exam. In preparing for the written exam, students are encouraged to request information from the ECE Faculty concerning the subject matter to be covered.
V. Faculty members within each of the ECE areas of specialization shall submit two one-hour sets of questions for the written exam, one set for the morning session and one set for the afternoon session. The questions for the morning session shall address area fundamentals. The questions for the afternoon session shall address more advanced concepts. All questions shall be based on existing undergraduate courses, including electives.
VI. In each session of the written exam, ECE students shall have three hours to answer the questions in their three selected areas, and Engineering Applied Mathematics students shall have two hours to answer the questions in their two selected areas.
VII. No materials other than writing instruments shall be allowed in the written exam. Paper,
calculators, and mathematical tables will be supplied by the GPC.
VIII. The Faculty shall meet within two weeks of the written exam, at which time the appropriate Faculty shall provide the graded written exams. At this meeting, the Faculty shall discuss student performance in the written exam, and judge the performance of each student to be passing, failing, or marginal. Those students whose performance is judged to be marginal shall be invited to the oral exam. The GPC Chair shall inform the students in writing of the outcome of the written exam, including the invitation to the oral exam as appropriate. Only PASS, MARGINAL, or FAIL grades shall be reported to the students.
IX. The oral exam shall consist of one session (about one hour), scheduled before the end of the semester in which the written exam shall have been administered. The oral exam shall cover those areas in which the student's performance in the written exam shall have been weak, and shall be administered by the appropriate Faculty. When inviting the student to take the oral exam, the GPC Chair shall inform the student of the areas to be covered in the oral exam. In preparing for the oral exam, students may request information from the ECE Faculty concerning the subject matter to be covered.
X. For students who take the oral exam, the ECE Faculty shall decide on the PASS or FAIL grade based on the student's overall performance in both the written and oral exams. The GPC Chair shall notify students in writing of the final outcome of their Qualifying Exam one week after the oral exam has been completed. Only PASS or FAIL grades shall be reported to the students. The PASS or FAIL grade shall apply to the entire exam and not to the individual areas or portions of the exam.
XI. The GPC Chair may discuss with a student the performance of that student on the written exam. However, only the GPC shall notify the students of their overall performance in the Qualifying Exam.
XII. Students attempting the Qualifying Exam for the second time must retake the whole exam. ECE students must again choose three areas of specialization, and Engineering Applied Mathematics students must choose two areas. The areas chosen for the second attempt do not need to be the same as those chosen for the first attempt.
XIII. The GPC Chair shall make a copy of this document available to each student
entering the Ph.D. Program and see that it is posted on the departmental web
site.
Courses for the Areas covered in the Qualifying Exam in Electrical and Computer Engineering
UNDERLYING MATHEMATICS BACKGROUND
The written exam does not include an explicit Mathematics portion, but the questions in the seven ECE areas shall require the underlying mathematical background expected of Electrical or Computer Engineers. This background shall be based on the contents of the following courses:
3450:221 ANALYTIC GEOMETRY AND CALCULUS I: Real numbers, analytic geometry, limits, continuity, derivatives of algebraic functions, tangent and normal lines, extrema of functions, Rolle’s Theorem, mean value theorem, related rates, antiderivatives, definite integrals areas, volumes, arc length.
3450:222 ANALYTIC GEOMETRY AND CALCULUS II: Derivative of exponentials, logarithmic, trigonometric, inverse trigonometric, hyperbolic, and Inverse hyperbolic functions, methods of integration, moments, centroids, indeterminate forms, polar coordinates, vector algebra, cylindrical and spherical coordinates, vector valued functions, curvature.
3450:223 ANALYTIC GEOMETRY AND CALCULUS III: Sequences, series, power series, Taylor and Maclaurin series, binomial series, functions of several variables, limit, continuity, partial derivatives, differentials, directional derivatives, double and triple integrals, surface area.
3450:235 DIFFERENTIAL EQUATIONS: Methods of forming and solving important types of differential equations, analysis of models involving differential equations of first order and simple equations of second order.
3450:312 LINEAR ALGEBRA: Study of vector spaces, linear transformations, matrices, determinants, inner products, the eigenvalue problem, quadratic forms and canonical forms.
3450:427/527 INTRODUCTION TO NUMERICAL ANALYSIS: Mathematical analysis of numerical methods for solving equations, interpolating function values, approximating derivatives and integrals, approximating functions.
3470:450/550 PROBABILITY: Introduction to probability, random variables and probability distributions, expected value, sums of random variables, Markov processes.
- ANALOG ELECTRONICS AND CIRCUITS AREA
COMMUNICATIONS AND SIGNAL PROCESSING AREA
COMPUTER SOFTWARE AREA
CONTROL SYSTEMS AREA
DIGITAL HARDWARE SYSTEMS AREA
ELECTROMAGNETIC FIELDS AREA
POWER ELECTRONICS AND MOTOR DRIVES AREA
Revised -- May 2005
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