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Advancement
to Ph.D. Candidacy
Upon completion of formal course requirements, each student will be required to take a written and oral University Qualifying “Candidacy/Senate” Examination that will admit the student to the candidacy of the Ph.D. program. In advance of the qualifying examination each student, in consultation with his/her faculty advisor(s), will establish a dissertation committee of 5 faculty members. The committee will consist of 3 faculty from the Bioinformatics program and two others who may or may not be part of the program. At least two of the 5 must be from a department other than the committee chair’s and at least one of these two must be tenured.
At UCSD, the University Qualifying “Candidacy/Senate” Examination is a requirement for a Graduate Student to complete satisfactorily, once a thesis project has been decided upon and the student has established a thesis Committee in consultation with his/her faculty research advisors. It is deemed after this examination that the student is formally advanced to PhD candidacy and eligible to graduate provided he/she completes his/her dissertation. It is strongly recommended except in special circumstances that the student complete this examination prior to the end of the first 3 years in the Program. The format for this examination is consistent with the highest standards held by peer Universities. The Student should write a detailed Candidacy report in the format of NIH proposals where it is expected that each Specific Aim will approximately form a Chapter in the dissertation. The Student should ensure that there is initial progress and the research design and methods are spelled out unambiguously. While the size of this document may vary, it is expected to be at least around 25-30 pages. Any publications/supplementary material may be attached. The Student should form the Examination Committee in consultation with his/her faculty research advisors and the Committee should be in a position to advise the student on his/her dissertation topic. The Committee constitution should be in accordance with the rules of the Program and UCSD. The student is advised to choose a Committee whose members will be in the best position to advise and will serve arguably as the toughest, albeit constructive critics of the research so as to maximize the quality of the dissertation. The report should be interdisciplinary and should have input from both thesis advisors. The format for the report should conform to the Bioinformatics Program requirements and not those of the parent Department(s) of the mentor(s)/faculty research advisor(s). It is expected that the student will meet at least annually with the Committee to update the members on his/her progress. |
