Comprehensive Examinations & Committees

Comprehensive Examinations

The Department of Physics has recently decided to modernize the first year graduate curriculum, and to substantially change the comprehensive examination procedure. These changes will primarily affect students entering in fall 2007 and thereafter.

The main points for current students are:

1. The default option for all current students is to take the two, four-hour written comprehensive exams—these will be offered twice more: in fall 2007 and spring 2008.
2. Current students with substantial research experience can apply to take the new-style comprehensive exam in fall 2007—see document for details.
3. The Department of Physics will hereafter follow closely the university’s regulations for comprehensive exams, in particular allowing students a maximum of two attempts at each of the written and oral parts of the exam (current students who have failed the written exam one or more times will be allowed one further attempt this fall).

For more information regarding the new procedure, please download the handout below. To view or download recent comprehensive examination papers [1], please contact the Graduate Coordinator for password information. 

Committees

After you have passed your written exam, you should be close to selecting your supervisory committee. A doctoral student’s supervisory committee is made up of five members, while a master's student’s committee consists of three. Each student is responsible for picking their committee chair and all but one committee member. Your chair can be your initial advisor, or any professor who you would like to work with. Once you have made your selections, make sure you ask each faculty member if they are available to serve on your committee.

Once they have agreed, you will need to fill out a Supervisory Committee Nomination form (below), and return it to the graduate coordinator. The graduate program coordinator will then contact the lead graduate advisor, John Venables, who will offer you your choice between two different faculty members. Once you have decided and the faculty member has agreed, please inform the graduate coordinator.

Occasionally you will need or want to switch a member of your committee. This is permissible, provided you fill out the Graduate Supervisory Committee Change form [2].